THAT SUMMER, Noble’s greatest headaches were domestic, but he could not ignore the forces at his borders. The late Lord Rhys’s kingdom of Deheubarth was close to anarchy as his sons squabbled over it; north of Maelienydd lay the divided and increasingly unstable Powys, half its forces slaughtered in a recent misguided uprising against the English.
A bigger concern for Noble, however, lay farther to the north, in Gwynedd. Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, an upstart would-be prince just a few years his junior, was fighting and strategizing his way toward a united crown of Gwynedd on a wave of public adoration. An able warrior and charismatic leader, he promised to be unreliable as an ally—he did want stability, and wanted all of Wales to throw off the Norman yoke, but to Noble’s mind, he wanted the ultimate glory in this achievement to be reserved only for himself. Even if he proved to be, in power, the next Lord Rhys, Llewelyn did not seem the sort to encourage a true confederacy of fellow rulers. He made no aggressive gestures; he was still working on uniting Gwynedd, and anyway, a thick slab of Powys served as a buffer between them. But Noble didn’t trust him, and was determined to glean what his intentions were toward the English—and particularly toward King Richard’s brother John, who watched Wales in his brother’s absence, and who might succeed the bellicose monarch once he killed himself on a continental battlefield. Richard’s reign had not been good for Wales; the Marcher barons had run wild with frontier ambition during his perennial absence from England. But John might strike his own bargain with the Marcher lords. He had been one of them, and he was not averse to guile. This thought, in turn, reminded Noble of the worst of his worries.
“Damn Roger Mortimer,” he grumbled, his head on Enid’s lap, reclining nude beneath a sheet in his receiving room. Their afternoon dalliance had been intended to get his mind off politics. It hadn’t worked. Nothing worked.
Gwirion had been called in to play for them and he was helping Enid, wearing only her shift, to tie her veil back on. It was the first time since the Midsummer feast that she was civil to him; she’d refused to even speak to him until he had admitted, in front of Noble, that he’d been a malicious ass to the queen. “Now what has our beloved Roger done?” Gwirion asked.
“Nothing yet,” Noble muttered. “Literally nothing—my scouts have all vanished into the ether. I send new scouts to find the old ones and they vanish as well.”
“And which one is Mortimer, again, sire?” Enid asked playfully.
“Trade lives with me, won’t you?” Noble pleaded, reaching up to tweak her nose. “I want your ignorance.”
“I am not ignorant, Your Majesty!” Enid replied with cheerful indignation, and swatted his hand away. “But which is Mortimer? All those Norman names sound the same to me.”
“I believe,” Gwirion said, reading a small gesture from Noble and moving toward the door, “that I’ll depart and let the king”—he waggled his eyebrows—“fill you in.”
Enid laughed. “Your subtlety is deafening, Gwirion.”
Noble sat up, stretching densely muscled arms as the sheet rolled off him. “Where’s my wife?” he asked, and for a fleeting moment Enid shifted uncomfortably. Gwirion looked bored and pointed at the ceiling to the queen’s solar above them. Noble rolled his blue eyes slowly toward Enid and gave her a seductive smile. “Just the very thought of Mortimer’s exhausted me. I need another nap.”
She grinned as he reached for her again. Gwirion, grateful not to be held in attendance for a second round, opened the door—and found himself face-to-face with the queen, who carried a heavy book under her arm. “Your Majesty!” he said with genuine alarm, and behind him heard the king curse under his breath. Gwirion reflexively raised the harp to his chest and wrapped his other arm protectively around it, as if she might injure it. “I was just looking for you, milady. I was wondering if you could give me lessons in that beguiling language of yours.” He loosened the grip on the instrument and took her arm, trying to back her out of the doorway. “If you could—”
With a glare, she pulled her arm free and pressed past him, holding out the book. “I need to speak to my husband about a matter of Welsh law that—” She stopped.
It was impossible to hide what was happening. Enid had the sheet wrapped around her and was huddled facing away from the door. Noble sat in profile to his wife, splendid and naked, not looking at her but not deliberately avoiding her either. For a long moment she stood staring silently at one, then the other, her face unreadable. Finally, Noble, as much out of boredom as charity, took a breath to say something, and as if that were her cue, she turned sharply away and walked out of the room. After an awkward beat, Gwirion closed the door.
“Pardon me,” he said, “but was I the only one who found that amusing?”
“Gwirion!” Enid snapped.
“At least she had some warning!” Gwirion insisted. “Imagine if I hadn’t given her a hint.”
“Shut up,” Noble muttered, getting to his feet and reaching for his drawers. With a long-suffering sigh he started to pull them on. “Mortimer had better behave himself for all this,” he said under his breath.
NOBLE, like most Welsh rulers, kept his barons committed to him by personal loyalty. Several times a year, he made a circuit of the kingdom, spending weeks in transit visiting his lords, giving gifts, hearing local cases with Goronwy his judge, checking the training progress of the barons’ own youthful teulu forces, taking time to speak even with the villeins along the route. It reassured him politically, but he also loved the fuss people made. Even the humblest servants and villagers around Castell Cymaron grew used to him eventually; on the road, amidst the far-flung collections of his subjects, he was a permanent celebrity. Tournaments were held for him by the local teulu, feasts were thrown, and he and Goronwy dispensed their royal justice to plaintiffs. The plaintiffs were often charmingly sycophantic.
His absence allowed his servants to have something like a holiday. Nearly all the court officers went with him, and those of the teulu who didn’t serve as bodyguards went off on a circuit of their own to keep them out of trouble, so there were few officials in the castle to cater to. This year it was to be a short tour; he was too concerned about the general political climate to be away from Cymaron for very long.
He avoided the east and his English border, where his scouts were still mysteriously silent and invisible. It was a feint: If Mortimer was up to something, Noble wanted him to proceed as carelessly as possible and thus give himself away, which was less likely if he knew the king was traveling nearby. So he sent Efan, his own penteulu, east to keep a subtle eye on Roger, but he himself moved much more ostentatiously along the southwest border, an area that he and Lord Rhys had tussled over more than once. Custom decreed that at this time the queen go on a circuit of her own, but she had not yet established diplomatic ties with any of his people, so he had brought her with him hoping she’d develop some. This meant dragging her through the wind-beaten, heather-crowned hills of one of the bleakest parts of his kingdom, but it also meant that they would have hours a day on horseback with little to distract them from coming to a personal understanding.
Isabel had been stone-cold to him at first and turned away from his touch in bed. Against his native inclination, he persisted with patience and indulgence, allowed Adèle to travel beside them instead of at the back of the train with the rest of the queen’s officers, indulged his wife’s peculiar newfound fascination with Welsh justice and permitted her to bring the codex of the Law of Wales with her. He gave her not one moment to suspect he was straying. She gradually softened, and one afternoon on their trek between manors, their bodyguards began unsentimentally to place bets on the king’s chances of riding his wife that night.
They were in the far west, heading north from the village of Rhaeadr on a hillside blazing yellow with gorse, in that awesome quadrant of the kingdom boasting dramatic cliffs and precipices. Isabel conceded a growing fondness for the landscape: As with the castle courtyard, there was somehow both a coziness and spaciousness about it. The royal couple had spent a genuinely pleasant morning together under clouds that looked, as usual, almost close enough to touch. They raised their voices over the slow, damp gusts that cooled the hilltop roads, discussing safely neutral topics like Roman ruins and folk beliefs about the spirits of the local flora. The casual ease between them, as companions, seemed secure enough that even Adèle stopped hovering obsessively, and warily slid back into her assigned place in the procession.
Isabel noticed a small stone pillar high atop a hill on the far side of the valley to the north. She asked her husband if it might not be the remnants of one of the Roman hill forts he’d described. He glanced to where she pointed, and stiffened. “No,” he said. “That’s a monument.” After a pause, he added, “To mark where your uncle killed my uncle.” Caught short, she drew a sharp breath. “One of my uncles,” he went on, gratuitously. “I believe the final tally was approximately three uncles and one father, limited of course to the one generation. Would you like to go across for a better look?”
She closed her eyes against his icy sarcasm. “Your grievances are starting to resemble boasting, sire. Have you never killed a man? Have the men you killed had no families?”
“I’ve never killed a man in ambush days after celebrating Christmas with him,” said Noble caustically.
She snapped her head around to glare at him. “Roger would never have done such a thing,” she declared.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “While you’re rewriting history, please expunge my father’s murder too.”
“There must have been some provocation, then.”
“Oh, great provocation. Cousin Rhys hosted a Christmas festival at Aberteifi, to celebrate the unprecedented state of nobody being at war with anybody else for more than a week, and my uncle Einion Clud’s team bested your uncle Mortimer’s in a tournament there. Clearly murder was the only possible response to such an insult, so Roger ambushed him on the ride home. Or perhaps that was just a convenient excuse to take up his father’s hobby—the obliteration of my line. Two years later he killed my father and tried to kill me too.”
She’d known about Cadwallon, but never having heard the bardic laments, details were unknown to her. “You were there?” she gasped, louder than she meant to.
He snorted with contempt that this was news to her. “Don’t your minstrels crow triumphantly about it?”
Suddenly she felt very tired. “I’m appalled that he did that, but it’s not my duty to atone for him.”
He swung around in the saddle to glare at her. “Yes it is,” he growled. “That and more. Doesn’t it strike you how few men in the prime of life there are about Cymaron? That most of my officers are approaching old age except for Efan, who’s barely a grown man?” He spoke rapidly, a recitation too familiar to dwell on: “Gwilym and Hafaidd lost their sons, each about to have ascended to his father’s post, less than a year ago in Roger’s last attack. Efan’s father, who to be honest had not quite prepared his son to take over my personal teulu, let alone my entire army, was killed the same day. Marged, in the kitchen, has lost a husband, half a dozen sons, and four grandsons over the past ten years. Cadwgan the marshal lost a son, Einion the porter a brother, Father Idnerth and Hywel several nephews each. And many women were lost as well but I’ll spare you the particular details. The only native soul in Cymaron who has not lost close family to your uncle within the last decade is Gwirion, because he has no family to lose. Even your women, your doorkeeper, your groom. These people see your Norman face at the king’s table every meal eating the food they worked to put there. Don’t expect them to stomach that if you offer no atonement.” He began to urge his horse ahead of hers.
She grabbed his arm and when he looked back at her, she tried not to sound imploring. “You resent me for my heritage but you don’t help me at all to embrace yours. I’m no use to you unless I belong to both and you know that, that’s why you chose me.”
His laughter was harsh. “Oh, it’s my fault, is it? I must convince my people to embrace you although I know you won’t embrace them back—what you want is to soften them to the man who killed—”
Fed up, she almost spat at him: “Have you atoned for the sins of your people, Noble? I’m not entirely ignorant of your family.” She felt her throat tighten; if they’d been in private, she would have shouted at him. She had been taught a recitation too, less personally bitter but still damning, and keeping her voice low and her face neutral in case anyone was watching them, she hissed it all at him in French. “One of your cousins killed his own brother, another blinded both of his brothers, and your own sainted father sold his brother as a hostage. That’s what your family does to its own, not to its rivals. You are dazzlingly sanctimonious.” She let go of his sleeve, took a deep, satisfied breath and looked away. That had felt wonderful.
He stared at her so hard she felt it as a physical force, and reluctantly found herself looking back at him again. “Yes, my family did all that. After your family had distressed them beyond reason,” Noble said quietly, all trace of humor, even sarcasm, vanished. “We must both of us atone for the sins of our families. Anarawd, who blinded his brothers, is my legal heir, and the only way to save the kingdom from his hubris is for me to have a son. Do you think I’ve spent the last two weeks coddling you because I’m sorry you were upset about Enid? Listen to me!” he snapped. She had looked away, and he grabbed her palfrey’s rein to force her toward him, which brought the palfrey to a jerking halt. The train behind them awkwardly pulled up. Noble was angry now, and the entire entourage could see it, but he lowered his voice for her hearing alone. “Caring what we think of each other is not a luxury allowed to us. I’d prefer not to force myself on you, but you’re bordering on treason if you would put your own petty pride ahead of giving me a child, when you know that if I die without issue, this kingdom will fall into such hands. Would you do that to your own people?” She looked stung, and he tried to speak in gentler tones. “When you’ve reconsidered the consequences of your selfishness, I will be ready for you.” He released her horse’s rein and spurred his own mount on ahead.
THE king never brought Gwirion with him on circuit. Gwirion hated leaving Cymaron, and anyway, His Majesty claimed, he was far too unpredictable. When Noble was away, Gwirion tended to slip into lackadaisical ennui. This had not always been true; in earlier years, he had made it a habit to steal the great seal, which was kept in the royal coffers, and use it on a variety of interesting proclamations. One year he demanded the arrest of all fleas, another time he issued a warrant outlawing the issuing of warrants, and once he officially declared that on the first of June all goods in the village could be paid for by the sound of money in lieu of actual currency. When following a bad harvest he managed to send out, to the entire kingdom, an edict that all land-use fees for the year could be paid in human excrement, Gwilym the steward—never losing his calm demeanor—seized the seal and kept it with him at all times until the king returned. He had ever since maintained a vigil over it whenever Noble left Cymaron. On only one occasion in over a decade had Gwirion managed to spirit the seal away from him, and used it to stamp an order that made dying a capital offense. The steward’s vigil had tightened after that, and Gwirion resigned himself to boredom in Noble’s absence. It was still better than being out on the open road.
When the watch on the keep roof called down that the royal party was in sight of home, the announcement set village and castle into a frenzy of activity. The mayor oversaw the village and Gwilym the castle, organizing the populace as they raised the images of Noble’s gold lion, rampant regardant, on a field of crimson. The porter’s deputy ran down to the village and offered the children a halfpenny an armload for flowers to strew along the hamlet’s single thoroughfare. In the castle, everyone assembled outside on the steps leading up to the hall, in formation according to their status—this meant Gwilym, followed by the smith in his black conical hat, followed by officials’ wives, followed by everybody else. Except Gwirion. True to the ambiguity of his rank, the man who was not even given a place at table stood in front of everyone else to welcome his monarch home.
Enid hesitated to join the welcome party. The queen had stumbled upon them a second time before the circuit started, under even more compromising circumstances, and had forbade Enid entering her solar or even straying unnecessarily into her view; the girl was debating whether anybody could really hold a grudge for weeks. “Look at you,” Gwirion said, shaking his head at her uncertainty. “Further evidence of the damage that Saxoness is doing all of us. It takes a potent dose of poison to dull your pretty smile.” She scowled at him, which to him only proved his point. “You’ll be out there to greet him, not her,” he insisted. “What has he done to you for you to disrespect him?” Ten minutes later, she was standing with the kitchen crew watching the gates draw open.
There was a small vanguard of teulu and then the king himself entered on his Castilian charger, in his red-and-gold traveling uniform, looking as ever casually bedazzling. The queen was behind him in similar colors, small and demure, looking and feeling almost invisible. Grooms stepped forward to take the horses’ heads and the couple dismounted while behind them the rest of the retinue continued to ride into the bailey. Following Gwirion’s lead, the assembly on the hall steps bowed in unison to their sovereign, and Noble, followed by his wife, formally bowed in response. “Now get you back to work, you lazy scoundrels!” Gwirion cried out playfully, turning around. “Haven’t you anything better to do than stand here and gape at the king’s consort? It’s the same woman he had when he left…well, that’s novel, anyhow,” he admitted, intending no real malice. To his mind it was even a compliment. He turned back around toward the king, and saw the queen walking past him briskly, her expression unreadable behind the linen veil that had shielded her face from the road dust. She made such a show of ignoring him as she passed that for a minute he actually pitied her ineptness, and very nearly offered to show her how to snub somebody more effectively. Instead, he took a step down to join the king, who was watching her go with a look of exasperation on his face. Gwirion was about to offer him sympathy when he realized the exasperation was aimed at himself.
“It took some hard words, but I had her feathers smoothed before you started in,” Noble said. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Gwirion said brightly, not sure how else to respond. “Are you in need of a nap?”
“No, Gwirion,” Noble said with tired patience. “I am in need of domestic serenity.”
“Ah.” Gwirion considered, briefly. “I don’t think I can help you much with that.”
Noble looked at him. “That is more than abundantly clear. Make yourself useful somewhere, would you please?” He passed by him and up the steps.
THE queen took supper in her room that night, citing travel exhaustion. Adèle was in the village arguing with the tanner about a belt for her mistress, so taking the platter up to the queen was left to Marged’s discretion.
Ever since Noble’s rebuke above Rhaeadr, Isabel had been troubled and meditative. There was a large chasm in her mind between her initial awed thrill at the title “queen,” the notion of all the useful Christian work that such a role might offer her…and the sole obligation to bear a son who would exist only to rule bogs, hillsides and shepherds. She was seeking solutions to her internal dissonance when there was a knock on the door and her doorkeeper Llwyd stuck his head in. “Your food, Majesty,” he said in his soft, somnolent tone. She put down the enormous law book she had been reading in the last stretch of daylight, and got up from the window seat. When she turned her attention back into the room, she was shocked to see Enid laying the platter on the bed. “Here you are, Majesty,” she hummed, curtsying and sounding chipper. The queen did not acknowledge her. “Would you like company while you’re eating?”
“Not yours,” Isabel said shortly. “Thank you for bringing my supper, but please have somebody else come for the platter.” She sat again and pointedly looked out the window.
Enid sighed and straightened up from arranging things nicely on the tray. Her impulse was to roundly scold Her Majesty, arms akimbo, but instead she clasped her hands sedately before her. “Milady,” she said, “it will not be possible for me to hide from you for the rest of my life. If I may be presumptuous enough—”
“You’ve already been more than presumptuous, Enid.”
She paused, and tried again. “You have forgiven him, milady, and his crime against you is worse than mine.”
“Is it?” Isabel asked in an ironic voice, looking at her.
“It’s his body you engage with, milady, not mine.”
“Your crime is not your body,” Isabel scoffed. “It’s encouraging my intimacy on false pretenses. You knew the significance of what you were hiding from me and you hid it so that you could worm your way into my affections.” She spoke with bitterness. “You were being duplicitous.”
“I thought I was being discreet, milady,” Enid answered quietly.
“How long did you expect that to last? What were you planning to say to me when I finally found out? What could you possibly have said that would preserve amity between us?”
“Preserving amity with you was not my first concern, Your Majesty,” Enid said. “You seem to think we are talking about a man, milady, but we are talking about the king, and my duty to the king comes first. I’m sorry for deceiving you, but my presence here does not diminish who you are. You are the queen. Doesn’t that satisfy you?”
Isabel stood up from the window seat. “You may not presume to tell me what I should be satisfied with!”
“Exactly—because you’re the queen and I’m not. Good evening, milady, and as you asked I will send somebody else up for the platter.” Enid was unused to the frustrated anger the conversation evoked in her; she had to get out of there before she said something she’d regret. She began to wonder if Gwirion was right about the queen’s universally poisonous effect. But it saddened her too. She liked the young woman and had even fancied there was something of herself in there, some happy spirit begging for release.
WHILE the queen was preoccupied with Welsh law, Corr was preoccupied with confirmation of his banishment.
“It’s not banishment. It’s retirement! How many parasites ever manage to retire? With full corrodies—lodging, food, clothing, everything! What a luxury,” Gwirion insisted, forcing cheer. Humffri ap Madoc, a baron to the north and the last stop on the king’s circuit, had volunteered to take the dwarf into his care, offering to give him a minor position in his own kitchen. Corr, who had always yearned for the pride of actually earning his own keep, almost wept with gratitude, and began counting the hours to his departure with happiness instead of distress.
The night before he left, with filial affection, Gwirion organized a farewell party for him. Adèle bristled when she learned of it: Corr was supposed to be leaving in shame as punishment for distressing the bride on her wedding day, but this was a near heroic send-off. Isabel did not bother sharing Adèle’s indignation; she had ensconced herself in her room, contemplating the various paths the Law of Wales might allow her. Nobody at the court paid her enough heed to wonder at her sudden interest in legal matters.
Noble composed Corr’s traveling party the next morning to his own advantage. Besides two members of the teulu, one of them about to leave to take holy orders at Cwm-hir, he ordered Gwirion and Enid to go along. This was a peace offering to his wife: Now the people she least wanted to see would be out of sight for a day, and perhaps he could coax her back out of her shell. Besides, although Gwirion usually refused to leave the village walls without the king, he was anxious to see where Corr would be spending his greying years, and Enid had long desired to visit her parents, who lived a few hours north of the castle. She would ride behind Gwirion on the mare, stopping on the way, and they would pick her up on their return.
The dwarf on his own tiny hill pony looked like a swaddled infant, wrapped protectively against the white-hot sun that would damage his fair skin so easily. The trip out was uneventful, but leaving Corr was far more distressing than Gwirion was prepared for. His usual endless chatter grew still, and he was a morose traveling companion as they headed back south. He rode very slowly through the dense yellow gorse, claiming it was his mount’s discomfort in the summer humidity; whatever the cause, they didn’t reach Enid until nearly sundown.
Enid’s parents, who were so aggressively dull that they left the source of their daughter’s buoyancy and beauty a mystery, breathlessly offered to host the royal party in their shoddy hovel on the edge of a hamlet. When Gwirion realized this meant they were planning to go without supper and sleep on the ground outside, giving their food and bedsheets to their guests, he refused. To the soldiers’ annoyance but Enid’s profound gratitude, he declared his intention of making it back to the castle by midnight; once they were safely out of sight of the hut, of course, they stopped again to make camp. They were at least off the main highway, he pointed out, far enough down the hillside to be out of the wind, but shielded from the cold valley mist by an oak grove below them.
The teulu mounts were always outfitted with travel gear: a small tartan brychan, flint, a water skin, and a miserly ration of cured meat behind each saddle. Once Gwirion volunteered to poach fallen branches from the oak grove—Enid and the guards were too superstitious to enter any grove of sacred trees—they were able to make a fire and a woefully thin meat broth to share, but there was an awkward moment about the sleeping arrangements. Enid had ridden behind Gwirion on the pony, so there were only two horses and therefore two blankets. Two blankets, and four people. It would be common enough to share a brychan, but these were cut too small for two men, even if one of them was slender Gwirion.
Since one guard would always be awake on watch, only three blankets would ever be needed, but that was still more than they had. Gwirion was about to offer Enid the second brychan when Caradoc—the stocky young soldier who was clearly not about to enter the brotherhood—asked Enid to share his with him. She laughed.
“I’m not for general consumption,” she said.
“His Majesty need never know,” Caradoc offered, and gave his cohort a meaningful glance. The monk looked disgusted and went to tether the horses away from the poisonous bracken. Ignoring Gwirion’s presence, the wooer turned his gaze back to Enid who, despite her youth, was probably older than he was. “Come on, then. You’re a fine girl and I’m not so bad, am I? We could have some fun, no harm done, and none’s the wiser.” He licked his lower lip. “I’ve fancied you for months.”
“Jesu, that’s enough,” Gwirion interrupted. “Enid, you take the second brychan. I’ll sleep in the bracken.” He began to walk toward the monk’s saddle.
“No,” said Caradoc in a menacing voice, moving toward Enid with ogling deliberation. “She’s mine.”
Enid stared at him, suddenly very aware of how large he was. Alarmed, she glanced at Gwirion, who changed course and immediately put himself between the two of them, glowering up at Caradoc, arms crossed. “No she’s not, Caradoc, she’s under my protection.”
The younger man laughed derisively and patted his sword hilt. “Your protection? Is that meant to intimidate me?”
“Think on who I am, you idiot,” Gwirion said in a calm voice, trembling in the darkness.
Caradoc considered him with an angry frown, then snorted with resignation and turned away, making a dismissive gesture. Gwirion barely managed to hide how relieved he was, but decided not to leave Enid’s side for the rest of the evening. He announced that she would sleep on the near side of the fire in the second brychan, and he would sit guarding her. The soldiers would split the night into two shifts, one of them sleeping at the far side of the fire, the other keeping the watch from near the top of a sheltering incline.
The monk had soothed Caradoc’s frustrated intentions by miraculously producing fermented liquid rye, and plied him with it until Caradoc fell asleep. Gwirion sat cross-legged at the corner of Enid’s blanket. “You look so maternal,” she teased, as she lay down on the tartan. He smiled, uncomfortable. He had seen Enid naked on the king’s bed and other places on plenty of occasions, but there was an unsettling intimacy to her snuggling down for something as innocent as sleep right in front of him. “You know,” she added, “we’re both small, we could probably share the brychan.”
He caught his breath. “Oh, no, that’s all right, I’m fine. I’ve got to keep my eye on Caradoc.”
“Caradoc’s asleep,” Enid whispered.
“Well…the young monk, then.”
She gave him a savvy look. “Gwirion, do you really think he’s going to try anything? Get some rest.” She moved over on the blanket and patted the empty space.
“Mmm—no. Many thanks.” He nodded almost spastically. “I’ll be fine.”
“Gwirion! Are you trying to insult me?”
“No,” he said in a voice tenor with tension. “I just want to be honorable. And see that you sleep unmolested.”
A coquettish and purposeful grin spread across her face. “Are you saying you’d molest me if you slept beside me?”
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean—that’s not…” His breathing grew shallow and quick and he looked pained. Delighted, she sat up, grabbed him by the shoulders, and pulled him back down on top of herself. “What…what’s this about?” he asked in the same boyish treble.
“I have a present for you,” she whispered into his ear. “To thank you for protecting me.”
He swallowed hard and tried to sit up, but she clasped him close above herself. “I’m very flattered but—”
“The king need never know,” Enid whispered, imitating Caradoc’s blustering diction. “We could have some fun, no harm done, none’s the wiser.” She smiled invitingly at him. “Anyhow, you know he has no jealousy of me.”
He stared at her, bemused and almost unhappy, for a long moment. Then he firmly removed her arms from around him and sat up. “Why are you doing this?” he asked quietly.
She sat up too, to stay near him. “Because I like you, Gwirion. I think you’re sad right now about Corr, and I want to take your mind off it.”
“I’ve known you since you were a girl,” he said softly. “Since nearly before you had breasts.”
“Is it the breasts you don’t like?”
“Lord, no, you have beautiful breasts. Fit for a king,” he said sheepishly.
“If you don’t object to the breasts, what is it you object to?” she pressed.
He blushed. “I just don’t…it’s been a long time since I—”
“Well, let’s make sure everything’s still functioning, then,” she purred.
He stopped resisting. Trembling, he watched her reach up under the short skirt of his linen tunic to loosen his drawers and tug them down below his bony knees. He stared at her stupidly, hardly breathing, afraid even to touch her. His eyes jerked nervously toward Caradoc across the fire, but the guard was sleeping soundly, turned away from them. A wriggling movement beneath him snapped his gaze back to Enid. She was lifting her skirt. Her eyes flickered up to meet his, and she smiled.
“I can’t,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Why not?”
He couldn’t answer that. To hear she was like a little sister to him would only make her laugh, and he had been present at her intimacies with Noble too often for a claim of modesty to ring true. “It’s just conditioning,” he said at last. “I see you with that look on your face and my fingers start itching for a harp.”
“I think we can find a better way to scratch that itch. Close your eyes if you need to. I’m not going to, though.” She grinned. “Half the fun in this is that it’s you.”
“Oh,” he said stupidly, not sure what she meant, and then bit his lip to keep from crying out as she reached up under his tunic and closed her hand around him. She guided him down on top of her and, with nearly maternal affection and attention, shifted her hips to give him access to her. He almost passed out before collapsing against her, trying to choke back sobs that were a confused mixture of pleasure, gratitude, and shame.
Across the fire from them, Caradoc slept soundly.
THEY returned to Cymaron by midmorning, crossing paths just outside the village gates with a departing emissary from Llewelyn, the upstart prince in Gwynedd. When they reached the stable, Enid skipped at once through the yard and into the kitchen to see if Marged needed her. Things were nearly prepared for dinner, which was always a simple meal, and after minding the stew for a short while, she headed into the hall to help the steward’s workers set up the trestle tables.
Too late, she realized the queen was standing in her path, reviewing a saint’s-day calendar with Father Idnerth and Gwilym. Not wanting to draw attention to herself, Enid hesitated, and overheard enough of the conversation to sober her. The queen, her face as inexpressive as ever framed by the dark red wimple, was being informed of what would take place on each of the feast days. She was not dispensing orders herself; the officers were not asking her opinion on anything, or even seeking her approval. They were, as always, respectful, even kindly, but aloof. There was an easy camaraderie between the two men that had nothing to do with rank—Enid knew even she would have been welcomed into it but the queen was absolutely excluded. She wished she had a reason to interrupt; she wasn’t fooled by the patient resignation plastered on Her Majesty’s face. She knew what was under it.
“Excuse me, milady,” she said on impulse, stepping into the triangle and nearly shrugging the frail old chaplain aside. All three of them stared at her, astonished by her impertinence. “May I speak with you for a moment?”
The queen’s face registered polite disinterest. “Certainly. Excuse us, gentlemen.” The tone was of dismissal, not departure, and after a pause they understood, drawing away with slight, stiff bows. She considered Enid for a moment—confusing Enid because, far from its usual coolness, the queen’s face suddenly seemed bordering on conspiratorial amusement. “What do you want?” she finally asked.
Enid scrambled for an excuse. “Lady Humffri sends her warmest regards.”
The queen gave her a droll look. “I was not aware you met with Lady Humffri.”
“No, that’s true, she gave the message to Gwirion but I thought I would spare you the displeasure of being approached by him.”
“I’ve been learning about Welsh law,” Isabel said abruptly. Her voice was low, eager and confiding, and for a moment Enid almost believed the queen had been awaiting her return to Cymaron just to share this with her. “Do you know much about Welsh law? There is no love lost between myself and the elements of this hill country, and I would welcome an excuse to leave, politics be damned. If I catch the two of you a third time, I’ll have that excuse—I can divorce him. But if I do, Enid, however content I might be with that, the ‘Saxons’ you all sneer at will have killed him and overrun the kingdom within a month. Apparently Welsh law is more progressive than Norman—where I come from, a kitchen servant fucking the king could never wreak that kind of havoc.”
Enid gasped to hear such language from the queen’s mouth, but before she could reply, her eye caught sight over the queen’s shoulder of the king. There was something about his posture that made her look twice; for a flash she was more aware of him as a burdened human being than as a ruler or even as a bedmate. She remembered the messenger they’d passed outside the gates; whatever was distressing His Majesty must have something to do with Llewelyn. He walked slowly from the door of his receiving chamber to the hall hearth, stared into it for a moment, then lifted his head, looked around—and fixed his hypnotic gaze on Enid. Seeing her in civil conversation with his wife, his eyes widened briefly, then he shook his head and began walking toward them. Enid knew the expression: He wanted her, alone.
“Did you hear me?” the queen demanded. “I have been discussing Welsh law with Judge Goronwy. I know what my rights are.”
“It’s not for me to say anything, milady,” she stammered.
“Yes it is,” Isabel retorted sweetly. “Jealousy is not the issue, Enid—I would like to catch you in the act again, I could be home in England by harvesttime. One more time, let me surprise you just once more.” She lowered her voice to an intimate whisper. “Give me that, Enid, as atonement for your sins against me. Wigmore is so lovely in the autumn,” she sighed, then turned officious. “But you must be willing. He can’t force you. Do you have any idea what it would cost him if you accused him of rape? I read that part of the law as well.”
“Did you read the part that says the king is, under all circumstances, exempt from punishment?” demanded her husband behind her, quietly. She started and turned to face him, but he switched his blue gaze to Enid. “I could take this adorable harlot by force if I chose to, but happily that’s never necessary with her. And while we’re on that subject, Enid,” he went on, in a suggestive tone, “go to my receiving room immediately.”
“I’m coming too,” Isabel announced. She glanced triumphantly at Enid but veiled her excitement from her husband lest he understand it.
“Very well,” he said, not looking at her. “You are, as ever, utterly transparent. I’m not going to alter my plans, but you’re welcome to watch.”
“Sire,” Enid said nervously, “Marged requires my presence—”
“I require it more,” he said with calm authority, and turned to head back to the audience chamber. “Come along or I’ll have to carry you, and that will make quite a scene.”
When both women had stepped inside, Isabel nearly humming with perverse anticipation, Noble shut the door with a small flourish and turned to Enid. “I was just speaking with that young would-be Cistercian. He brought distressing news about something that happened last night.”
“It was nothing, sire,” she insisted.
“He said the other guard made an unwelcome advance on you.”
“Caradoc. It was nothing. Gwirion stared him down.”
“That was honorable of him.”
“Yes it was. He’s an honorable fellow,” Enid said, and added for the queen’s benefit, “in his own strange way.”
“I’m also told that after Caradoc turned in, you and Gwirion were intimate with each other.”
This caught her completely by surprise and she blushed for perhaps the first time in her life. Isabel involuntarily recoiled. “Well,” Enid stammered. “Yes, sire. That’s true.”
“Who initiated it?”
She hesitated. “I did.”
Noble took a breath that almost sounded like satisfaction, but his response, incongruously, was, “I’m not pleased about that, Enid.” He looked at his wife. “You’re welcome to stay but this topic is the sum of my interest in her today. This particular liaison will afford you no grounds for divorce and I’m sure there are more satisfying ways for you to spend your time.”
Isabel was so unprepared for the direction in which the encounter was going that it took her a moment to answer. “Yes, there are,” she agreed, and opened the door to leave.
But when she’d pulled it shut behind her, her curiosity kept her there. She lingered for a few moments, tempted to go back inside, and she had just convinced herself not to, had nearly taken a step up the stairs toward her solar, when the door was suddenly flung open and the two of them came out in a rush. Noble was angry and Enid looked shocked, almost dazed. He had her by the back of the neck, pulling her along beside him as he walked quickly toward the main door to the hall, with his captive scrambling not to lose her footing. “Sire, please—” she heard Enid say, sounding frightened, and she rushed to intercept them.
“Noble, leave her alone!” she insisted, stepping directly in front of them. He stopped short but did not release his grip on Enid’s neck. “You don’t own her.”
“I do, actually, but that’s beside the point—and you have no idea what the point is, so stand aside.”
“Where are you taking her?”
“Away from mischief,” he announced, and elbowed his wife aside to continue the harsh promenade to the hall doorway.
AFTER seeing his mare safely to the stable, Gwirion retreated into the tiny closet off the kitchen that had long ago been designated his sleeping quarters. He fell asleep effortlessly, grateful to be back under his own blanket and enjoying that rare privilege of privacy. He was surprised to be awakened by Marged’s grandson with the news that the king wanted to see him at once. It was after supper. He had slept more than eight hours.
“Can’t he entertain himself for once?” he grumbled, but he went along obediently.
Noble sat alone in the audience chamber. This was Gwirion’s favorite room in the castle, small but brightly whitewashed, and carpeted with pale pelt rugs. Although wall paintings and tapestries throughout the castle offered color and cheer, there was something almost celestial in the simplicity of this space. The king’s elegant leather chair faced a padded settle across a low table—actually an ornate chest—and there was a cushion at his feet where Gwirion sat sometimes. Otherwise the room was empty. It had only the one door opening into the great hall, and no window but a high-up slit of an air vent, too small even to shoot an arrow from, that opened away from the yard. But the glazed white walls, broad hearth, and generous array of sconces kept it from ever seeming dark or stuffy. Gwirion performed what passed as a bow and at Noble’s gesture, sank down on the cushion with his harp beside him.
“This is formal,” he commented. Noble looked tired and careworn; probably from being left alone with his wife for a day and a half, Gwirion decided. Then common sense intervened: He knew the source of the king’s distress. “We passed a courier by the gate this morning—was he wearing the colors of Gwynedd?”
“Yes,” Noble sighed. “The upstart prince Llewelyn has requested an official diplomatic relationship—not as an upstart but as a prince. As a peer.” He did not sound pleased about it, but his tone hardly explained how grim he looked. “That’s not why I called you in here, Gwirion. I know about what happened last night.”
“It wasn’t a problem, sire,” Gwirion waved it off. “Caradoc—”
“Not that. I already have a full confession from Enid. I know she pushed you into it. I don’t hold you responsible.” Gwirion’s face reddened and he uttered a sound that wasn’t quite a word. “What’s the matter, didn’t you enjoy it? Your monk friend seemed to think you enjoyed it quite a lot.”
“I wasn’t planning, I mean, I had no intention—”
“I know that.”
“And I’ll never let such a situation hap—”
“No, I’ll never let such a situation happen again,” Noble snapped. He sat up very straight and stared down at Gwirion with an alarming expression. “It was such a trespass for her to do that. I couldn’t let such wanton use of power go unpunished.”
Gwirion leapt unsteadily to his feet. He hoped he misunderstood. “Sire? What do you mean?”
Seeing Gwirion’s face, Noble couldn’t help a short, harsh laugh. “Calm down, I haven’t killed her.” Gwirion relaxed. “I’ve just had her sent away.”
The alarm sprang back to Gwirion’s eyes. “What?”
“I didn’t hurt her. Just had them shave her head a bit before they drove her out.”
“Drove her out?” Gwirion echoed. “Why?”
Noble gave him a long, slow stare. Then he abruptly changed his expression and said, lightly, “The queen was troubled by her presence. It’s just as well she’s gone.”
Gwirion frowned. “You threw her out because the queen was upset that you had her, or because you were upset that I had her?”
“Neither,” said the king. “I was upset that she had you.” Gwirion gave him a bemused look. “It’s a matter of ethics, Gwirion, so you probably wouldn’t understand: you mustn’t take other people’s things.” Gwirion started at what this implied and tried to protest, but impatiently the king added, “Actually, Isabel was waiting to catch me with her a third time to sue for divorce, so now I’ve removed the temptation. That’s all. I just wanted to tell you what had happened.” Gwirion stood openmouthed before him. “What?”
Disoriented and not knowing which explanation was the truer, or what to make of either one, Gwirion managed to stammer, lamely, “Won’t you miss her?”
“Probably, but I’ll find someone else. I might even give monogamy a try—my wife really is plotting to divorce me otherwise.” He laughed. “In fact, I think I’ll take her right to bed. The least she can do is give me a son.”
HE felt no stronger affection for her but his need to make his cousin Anarawd irrelevant compelled him to take her frequently, until it became almost a chore for both of them. Although a private skeptic, he even consulted his physician and his bard to see if there were any astrological considerations, amulets, or spells that might assist; the suspicious silence from his border with Mortimer and the too eager whispered rumors of Llewelyn’s rising star made him desperate for an heir.
He did at least take steps against Gwirion to keep things comfortable for the queen. Gwirion rebelled as much as he dared, and protested ferociously that after robbing him of his only two companions, Noble had no right to make his life even more miserable by muzzling him. The king stood firm. So Gwirion was called upon to play the harp in the evenings after the bard had finished his more respectable performance, but he was not allowed to speak publicly in hall. His position had always been peculiar and his status a source of perennial dissent—in a world of strictly established court positions, he conformed to nothing. Noble had despaired of passing him off as the chief of song, because the office required things that were beyond him. He should, for example, have begun each evening’s entertainment with a song of religious praise, but he was already perceived as such a rascal that on the few occasions he’d tried to do it, it had sounded like a parody.
So Gwirion lived in an odd limbo. He was allowed to play the gilded willow harp with the carved lion’s head, loaned to him by King Cadwallon years ago—the most valuable object in the castle outside the relics of St. Cynllo in the chapel—and he played nearly every evening, but only after the official bardic entertainment had finished. He maintained his stool just behind the king’s chair at board, and they often whispered together, snickering, when there was no other conversation, but Noble was aware of his wife’s eyes on him and would be careful to give her equal, if dispassionate, attention.
Robbed of his usual outlets for both anger and amusement, Gwirion turned his attention to writing letters to Corr. He did not have a pretty script, and he was nearly positive Corr could not, in fact, read. But he needed to express his indignation to somebody and no one else would listen. The consensus of the court was that this was simply how things would be from now on—less entertaining but more civil—and it was Gwirion’s problem if he could not adjust.
IT’S a hopeless situation, my friend,” he scribbled. “It’s the most ill-starred marriage since Adam and Eve. It’s just as well Noble won’t let me mock her, I wouldn’t even know what to say, she gives me nothing to play with. It’s very frustrating.
“He is truly restraining from all entertainment outside the marriage bed, the poor bored lad. She seems to take this as her due, as if it were to be expected. She has no idea what a monumental, even heroic, effort it is on his behalf—not only to restrict himself to one woman, but for that woman to be her! She should be kissing the hem of his robe, and instead she struts around smugly as if she were entitled to the preferential treatment! She seems to think it will always be this way. I tell you, Corr, she’ll be disappointed. And probably soon.”
THE betrayal took place on her own bed. She had been vaguely aware that Gwen, her tallest attendant, resembled not only Enid, but nearly every woman who caught Noble’s eye: wild dark hair, impossible to tame even braided under a veil, glistening dark eyes and most of all, extraordinary curves. “You could fit the queen’s buttocks into that girl’s cleavage and there’d still be room left over,” Gwirion had made the point of saying loudly in hall one afternoon. Noble, grinning, had lined the two of them up as if measuring them for the accuracy of this assessment, and Isabel had assumed that his public playfulness meant he would go no further in private. She was wrong.
Gwirion entertained that evening after Hywel the bard retired to the village. He was very solicitous toward the queen, asking what she would like to hear and playing with extraordinary grace. Somewhere he had found a set of gut strings and restrung the harp with them; that simple, subtle change in tone, to the more resonant flavor she was familiar with, made the music even more distracting. He was an excellent harpist, which annoyed her: It seemed unfair that such a cretinous soul should have that talent.
Her suspicion of his motives began when he apologized profusely, almost self-flagellating, for being ignorant of the excellent and varied Norman repertoire. Then she realized that the king, who had excused himself to the garderobe, had been gone nearly half an hour. When Gwirion finished “Rhiannon’s Tears” for the second time—his signature tune, which she was unwilling to tell him was also a favorite of hers—she thanked him for the recital and excused herself to bed.
“Bed?” Gwirion echoed with a blink. “You mean the king’s bed, surely. He’ll be wanting you there.” This was true: Noble had given Gwirion orders to distract the queen as long as possible before sending her directly to his room, to keep her out of her own, where Gwen was finishing a weaving project.
“I assumed my husband had already retired for the evening,” she said, acutely aware of the entire court, officers and servants, ogling their interaction. It was rare for these two to acknowledge each other directly.
“Oh, no, milady,” Gwirion said with slightly too much insistence. “He expressly asked me to tell you to retire to his chamber.” He had the gift of telling the truth as if it were a lie, and she thought she was catching him in a falsehood. Just as he had counted on.
“Is he in his chamber now?” she asked.
“He’ll be there,” Gwirion said, nodding his head earnestly.
“Where is he now?” she pressed.
“He’ll be in his room soon, Your Majesty. That’s where he wants you to go.”
Isabel rose from her seat. She didn’t know what was going on, but anything to do with Gwirion made her uncomfortable, and that, in turn, made her want to withdraw. “I am retiring to my own chamber,” she informed him, unaware he’d neatly shepherded her to this decision. “When you see the king, please invite him to send for me when he’s ready to retire.”
“If you insist, milady,” he answered, and remained expressionless until she had mounted the steps. Then he grinned hugely, tickled by the prospect of approaching chaos.
Adèle was near the kitchen screens and saw his glee. She thought she understood it, and raced across the width of the hall after her mistress, hoping she could intercept her.
She couldn’t. She slipped on some wet rushes, and as she recovered and scrambled up the stairs to the queen’s solar, it was clear from the sounds within what had happened: The queen had found her husband undressing dark-haired Gwen.
She glared at them in silence, but her appearance and expression so frightened Gwen that the girl shrieked in alarm, and it carried clearly down into the hall, where Gwirion fell off his stool from laughing. Noble tried to assuage his wife, who was almost too furious to speak. When she found her voice, she was barely coherent and switched between Welsh and French without realizing it. “You’re finished!” she whispered furiously at the traumatized, confused Gwen in a language the girl didn’t understand. “You will be out of this castle tomorrow and I never want to see you again.” Gwen, trying to get back into her tunic, looked at the king in confusion. Adèle shut the door behind her to keep them from continuing to entertain Gwirion, and very brusquely started to help Gwen into her surcoat.
“She’s throwing you out,” Adèle explained shortly, and escorted her to the far side of the room, beyond the tapestry that closed off the attendants’ sleeping area, so that she could finish adjusting her clothes.
Isabel’s anger transformed into vengeful ecstasy as she turned her full attention to her husband. “That’s the third time I’ve caught you, Noble! I can do it now. Even as a king you have no right to stop me.” She pointed triumphantly to the heavy law book beside her bed. “I,” she announced, looking radiant, “am suing for divorce.”
Noble crossed his arms and gave her the overly patient look of a tired parent. “And what will you be going home to, madam?”