The Reckoning - 3 (61 page)

"No. Llewelyn is my firstand lastlove. But I know what it is like to lose a loved one. Be it a father's death or a lover's loss, the pain is no different.
Any time that one we love is taken from us, it leaves a jagged hole in the heart. I know about loss, Caitlin . . . and about living with the fear of loss. My aunt Joanna and her Llewelyn were blessed with a long, fruitful marriage, nigh on thirty-one years, and my parents . . . they were together for twenty-eight years. But Llewelyn and I... how many years can we hope to have? Not enough, not nearly enough. So much time squandered, stolen from us .
. ."
Caitlin was quiet, considering. "Yes, you do understand," she said at last. "I
feel so empty . . . and so angry. No, not at Hughat myself. If only I'd been forthright with him, let him know how I felt! But it was easier to wait, to give him the time he needed, time to discover that he cared for me, too. I
knew he saw me as a little girl, a little sister. I was sure, though, that one day he'd look up and see me as I truly was, as a woman who loved him. So I ...
I kept silent, I kept my pride intact, and now my pride is all I have left
..."
It was the longest speech that Ellen had ever heard Caitlin utter. It Was heartening to learn that she'd been able to win the girl's trust so c°mpletely, but what was she to say? What comfort could she offer?
"The worst of it, though, is that I know she'll not make him happy, he is wrong for Hugh, all wrong. Oh, I know I'm not pretty, not like er- Elunedeven her name sounds musical. But a fair face and a

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honeyed name may not be enoughnot for Hugh." Caitlin looked u then, green eyes darkening. "I realize how that makes me sound," s^ said defensively. "But it is not just jealousy, Aunt Ellen, that I sweari"
Ellen surprised her, then. "I know that, Caitlin, for I agree with you. I do not think Eluned is right for Hugh, either. She seems to have a sweet nature.
But she also seemsfor want of a better wordvery giddy."
"You see it, too! I feared I was the only one. Hugh is not a man to be content with . . . with a butterfly, not for long. What happens when her chatter begins to pall, when her beauty no longer takes his breath away? Then what? I
find it hard to see him so happy with Eluned, I'll not deny that. But how much harder it will be to see him unhappy ..."
Ellen's hopes for Hugh's marriage were not much more sanguine than Caitlin's, but that was a worry to be confronted in the future, if and when their fears were borne out. Her immediate concern was Caitlin, and how to staunch the girl's bleeding. What she needed was to get away for a while, away from Hugh and Eluned's newlywed bliss. A pity she had no maternal kindred, for she'd sooner turn to the Devil than to Davydd.
"Caitlin, do you remember my cousin Hawise? You met her at my wedding. She is kin to you, too, for her mother was Llewelyn Fawr's daughter. I am sure she would be delighted to have you visit, to stay as long as"
"Leave Wales?" Caitlin's eyes were wide; that was obviously an option she'd never considered, and one too outlandish to be taken seriously. "I could never leave Wales."
Ellen lapsed into a pensive silence. "Caitlin . . . have you given any thought at all to marriage?"
The girl nodded. "Of course I have, Aunt Ellen. What other solution is there for me? I want Uncle Llewelyn to find me a husband. But not yet, not until my grieving is not so raw. It would not be fairto the man or to meto wed whilst I
still mourned what might have been."
Ellen could see the wisdom in that. But before she had a chance to say so, a sudden warning shout came echoing up from the gatehouse. Rising, Ellen moved to the window, with Caitlin just a step behind. The riders were not yet within recognition range. As they drew nearer, Ellen's eyes focused upon the bright, fluttering banner, for the arrns-^ four quartered lions, counterchargedwere very similar to Llewelyn's own. But the colors were wrong, silver and blue, not gold and red. "Oh, no," Ellen said, and Caitlin, leaning out the window, gave a gasp as she, too, saw the windblown banner.
"It is my father!" She turned a dismayed face toward Ellen. "What is he doing here?"

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"Who knows?" Ellen watched morosely as a challenge was issued, ns\vered, and the drawbridge began its creaking descent. "Davydd cent word last month that he would be crossing into Llewelyn's lands, not exactly asking permission, but as much as we could expect from him, I suppose. He said he and Elizabeth were bringing their sons to see Owain, who has been ailing. He also asked if we could offer a night's lodging at Castell y Bere. Why he should be in
Meirionydd at all is beyond me, since it lies well to the south of Owain's lands in Llyn, but ask he did, and we could not very well refuse. Not when the poorest \Velsh hovel is open to travelers, every table is set for unexpected guests, and Lucifer himself could count upon a meal and a bed by the hearth on his sojourns in Wales."
"But why did you say nothing of this to me?"
"It seemed better to wait, at least until after Hugh's wedding. Davydd said they would be coming into Meirionydd the week after St Bartholomew's Day, and so we thought you had no need to know yet, not until the time drew nigh for his arrival."
Caitlin's mouth twisted. "Leave it to my father," she said bitterly, "to come a full fortnight early. Aunt Ellen ... I do not think I can face him now."
Ellen knew exactly how she felt. "I shall tell them you are ailing," she said, and braced herself to offer Lucifer a meal and a bed by the hearth.
"UELO, no!" Elizabeth thrust her baby at Ellen, hastily crossing the hall to corral her firstborn, just as he was about to take a swig from an untended wine flagon. Although caught in the act, he gave his mother a grin as unrepentant as it was contagious. As young as he was, he'd already learned that he would be called to account only for truly awesome misdeeds: the time he deliberately dropped a lit candle into the floor rushes, the time he put a frog in his mother's bath, the time he put a cat in his brother's cradle to watch it suck the baby's breath, as his nurse said cats did. His cockiness proved justified now; instead of scolding, Elizabeth could not help grinning back at him, and he got a hug, not a swat on his bottom.
Across the hall, Ellen was unable to take her gaze from the boy, her husband's nephew and potential heir. Llelo might bear Llewelyn's Christian name, even his childhood nickname, but he was the mirror "flage of his father. To Ellen, it was a bit unsettling to see Davydd's glinting green eyes in the chubby-cheeked face of a two-year-old. The "aby in her arms hiccuped, began to whimper, and she rocked him §ently until he quieted. He looked up at her, as solemn as a little owl.

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Never had she seen such feathery golden lashes; never had she touched skin so soft. "Shall I sing you to sleep, Owain? I know a song sure to please a darling lad like you"
Ellen's head jerked up, warned as much by instinct as by the approaching steps. For a moment, she and Davydd looked at each other and then she summoned up a brittle, self-conscious smile. "You have f a handsome son," she said, and held Owain out to him. Davydd looked %s nonplussed as if he'd been handed hot coals, and after failing to spot the baby's wet nurse, gave Owain hurriedly back to Ellen.
A gleeful shriek now drew their attention again to Llelo. He'd coaxed
Elizabeth into a game of tag, and she had begun to chase him around the table.
Flushed and breathless, she looked like a child herself at that moment, careless of her dignity, intent only upon pleasing her small son. Ellen glanced quickly at Davydd, curious as to his reaction, for she knew many men would not approve of such unladylike antics; highborn wives were not expected to be such doting mothers, at least not in public. But Davydd was watching with an indulgent smile, a smile that vanished as soon as he turned back to
Ellen.
"I hope," he said, "that Caitlin will at least make an appearance at dinner."
Ellen gave him a look of polite surprise. "Surely you have not forgotten so soon? Caitlin is ailing, confined to bed with a fever."
"Yes, so you said. But it must have come upon her right suddenly, for as we rode into the bailey, I saw her standing beside you at the solar window."
Damn his hawk's eye! Was there nothing he missed? "Mayhap 1 made more of it than I ought, for you are right; Caitlin is not bedridden. But she truly is unwell," Ellen insisted, in good conscience, for was not an aching heart an ailment, too? "She did not feel fit for company."
"But Elizabeth and I are not 'company,' " Davydd pointed out coolly, "we are kin. Moreover, I have something of importance to discuss with her. She is about sixteen now, no? I think it is time I found her a husband."
Ellen was stunned by his audacity. "That is for Llewelyn to do!"
"Caitlin is my daughter, not his," Davydd snapped, and Ellen's temper took fire, too fast for her to consider the consequences.
"You may have sired her," she snapped back, "but Llewelyn is more of a father to that girl than you could ever hope to be!"
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she'd have given anything to recall them, for she realized at once what a weapon she'd just handed Davydd.
How could she have been so rash, she who was always so prudent? She raised her chin, looked into Davydd's angry eyes, and waited for the blow to fall.
It did not come, though, the taunt she so dreaded about barren wives, princes without heirs. Davyyd gave her a cold, measuring look, but then he shrugged, said, "Caitlin would likely agree with you."
Ellen was amazed by the reprieve, feeling as if an arrow had just been deflected, whizzing harmlessly over her head when it had been aimed right at her heart. She hesitated, wanting to let Davydd know that Caitlin's refusal to see him was not personal, not this time, feeling that she owed him that much after his unexpected and inexplicable forbearance. But she could not betray
Caitlin's confidence, and she was seeking a way to reconcile these conflicting needs when a man burst into the hall with a startling message, that Llewelyn had just ridden into the bailey.
Davydd was frowning. "I thought you said Llewelyn was hunting?"
"He was." Ellen was just as baffled as Davydd by Llewelyn's early return, and more than a little uneasy, for men never cut the hunt short unless the weather turned foul or there was a mishap of some sort. Beckoning to Juliana, she

handed her the sleeping child, for she did not want Llewelyn to see her holding Davydd's son. She was turning toward the door when it opened and her husband strode into the hall.
Even before she saw the injuredone man cradling his arm in a makeshift sling, another whose tunic was torn, whose hair was matted with bloodEllen knew something had gone amiss. The men were grimfaced, oddly silent, with none of the raucous boasting that normally heralded a hunting party's return. Llewelyn stopped abruptly at sight of Davydd and Elizabeth, but he recovered swiftly, and made a credible attempt to meet the demands of hospitality, to make them welcome at his hearth. He greeted them politely, sidestepped their queries without overtly appearing to do so, and then excused himself so he might change out of his muddied hunting clothes. His young squire started to follow, then stopped, uncertain, for he'd been told that Llewelyn never wanted servants hovering about when he was angry or in a hurry. But he was newly come to Llewelyn's service, and he did not want his lord to think he was shirking his duty. He dithered for a moment or so, not sure what to do, and was relieved when Ellen made the decision for him, drawing him aside to ask:
"Trevor? What happened on the hunt?"
"It began so well, my lady, to have ended so badly. Almost at once the lymer hound sniffed out fresh tracks, and when we uncoupled the running hounds, they flushed a prize stag, a ten pointer! Cynan got off an arrow shot, but it did not bring him down, and as we gave chase, Morgan's stallion stumbled and threw him. By the time we'd seen to him and retrieved his horse, the dogs were out of sight, and when we

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caught up with them, they'd lost the scent. We concluded the stag must have gone into the river, so we swam our mounts across."
Ellen felt a sudden chill, for the lands across the River Dyfi were now Crown lands; Edward had claimed the commote of Geneu'r Glyn as spoils of war. "The river ... it was the Dyfi?"
The boy nodded. "What else could we do?" he asked, a question Ellen knew to be rhetorical, for she also knew it was a point of honor f with hunters that once an animal was wounded, it must be slain.
Davydd had joined them by now, but she kept her eyes on Trevor. "Go on," she said. "What happened then?"
"Some of us went downstream, the others upstream, seeking to find where the stag had come ashore. I rode with Dion and Sehvyrt, and our dogs soon picked up the trail again. We decided to follow them a short way ere we summoned the others, to be sure they were on the right scent. But we'd gone no more than half a mile when we came upon the beast, down and foundering. We saw then why we'd seen no blood, for Cynan had gut-shot him. We sounded the horn, and
Selwyn hamstrung him and gave the coup de grace."
Ellen had been listening with mounting impatience. She appreciated Trevor's slow, deliberate Welsh, for her grasp of her husband's language was still a tenuous one, but she wished he did not feel the need to relate a moment-by-moment account of the hunt. She'd been about to urge him to cut to the bone when he threw in that sudden French phrase, looking so proud of himself that she did not have the heart to rein him in.
Davydd was not so tolerant, however. "Do you suppose, lad, that you could pick up the pace a bit? I'm sure Lady Ellen never meant you to make this tale your life's work."
Ellen glared at him, and Trevor blushed. "I'm sorry, my lord. I was just trying to be sure I left out nothing of importance. They sent me then, to find our lord and fetch him back to the kill. Whilst I was gone, the others camethe
King's men, who'd heard the horn. Dion and Selwyn identified themselves as
Prince Llewelyn's huntsmen, explained that they'd chased the stag across the river. But the King's officers paid no heed. They claimed the stag, and when our lads tried to stop them, they were set upon and beaten. The knaves even clubbed one of the dogs!"
Trevor finally paused for breath. "By the time we reached the clearing, they were gone, the stag was stolen, and Dion and Selwyn lay bruised and bleeding upon the ground. How could that happen, nty lady? How could they dare to treat our Prince like a trespasser in rus own country?"
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