AS THE DAYS shortened and the wind grew sharp, Isabel tried to turn away from her losses to help to prepare the castle household for the winter. Between the queen and Gwirion there was a kind of truce. They had nothing to talk about, but with Adèle as agitator replaced by a shared remembrance of her death, they were finally at least tolerant of each other.
The rising star, that upstart Prince Llewelyn of Gwynedd, continued to make his presence known at Cymaron, sending first a flowery message of condolence and later an offer to fill Adèle’s office with the spinster sister of a minor official in Llewelyn’s court. Noble, after spending weeks convincing his wife he was not really a monster, allowed her to respond to this herself. She graciously declined the offer. With equal graciousness, Noble himself declined Llewelyn’s suggestion that they consult toward forming a confederacy of Welsh princes—which Llewelyn, as prince of the once and future greatest kingdom in all of Wales, would naturally lead.
Something had derailed Mortimer’s ambitions to the southeast with the deBraose family. There was much dissension about it in the council—Gwilym and Efan, who differed in philosophy even more than in temperament or age—were clearly annoyed with each other for some reason, but the issue was never discussed openly outside the council room and Isabel sensed that nothing good would come of her prying for more information. As long as Roger’s mischief didn’t reflect poorly on her own character, she decided she could not waste the time in thinking much about him anymore. Her brother’s struggle to run his estate as well as she once had, a challenge frequently bewailed in his letters, was the only piece of her family’s fortune she indulged herself to care about.
It was the last day of October now, the beginning of winter and the end of red-deer season, and the king was preparing to ride on the annual first hunt. On this daylong outing, the youngest hounds were taken into the hills without their elders, to gauge their general competence and maturity for hunting winter game. This year, it was particularly significant, since fate and illness had conspired to kill many of the older dogs. The first hunt would let the huntsman know what sort of pack he had to see him through the winter. This in turn affected much of the rest of the castle: November was the month to slaughter livestock and today would give the butcher a sense of how much stock would have to be killed, which would in turn alert Marged and Gwilym to how much brining salt would be needed to cure the meat, which would in turn determine how Cadwgan would go about securing it.
Gwirion, generally reluctant to leave the castle in any event, had been wary of even an unescorted walk down to the village since the night of Adèle’s death, and he had never been one to enjoy a hunting day. But he made it very clear that he wanted to go this time, and the chief huntsman warily welcomed him. He wrapped an extra mantle around himself and went on his pony beside Noble and the other riders, out the main gate and down over the River Aron, through grey fog as thick as fleece at an hour he would not normally consider decent.
IN the dark of the morning, an early mass had been held to bless the dogs and the hunters. They were gone, lost in the heather of the higher hills, by the time the castle as a whole had risen, and they weren’t expected back until well after dinner. They were not missed; that evening would be the sober festival of All Hallows’ Eve and those in charge of preparing for it were glad to have fewer extra people underfoot all day. There were the common feast foods to ready—geese, pork, lamb, vegetable stews, white barley bread, and mounds of cheeses—as well as whatever the hunt would bring in. But today people also had to prepare food for the dead, tiny loaves made of barley, water, and so much salt they were inedible to any sentient tongue. The village children would collect these soul cakes later—and, of course, demand payment for seeing to it that the dead received their nourishment. There were similar customs in England although they were confined to the lower Saxon classes. But the queen, still grieving for Adèle, went to the kitchen early on in her somber surcoat, gown, and wimple to make a dozen soul cakes with her own hands. Her presence caused a wordless stir and she was awkwardly avoided by everyone but Marged, who enjoyed watching the foreign woman trying to conform to their ways.
Outside, once the mist burned off, all of the men who were not on the first hunt were helping the fueler collect enough wood for the evening’s bonfire. In a land devoted to celebratory flames, this would be the biggest blaze of the year. The entire castle would spend most of the night around the fire playing games, feasting on apples and nuts, and indulging in divination—something Gwirion was particularly called upon to do because he could improvise nonsense and deliver it with such convincing, deadpan earnestness. As with every other feast day she had spent in Maelienydd, when Isabel heard of these festivities she shook her head at how much more cheerful, loud, and outright pagan the formal observations were here compared to her native Wigmore Castle.
There was a feeling of morning levity around the bailey. For the first time in months, the sky was completely cloudless, and brilliant blue above the crisp autumn air. Most court functions had been suspended for the hunt, and the officers who remained behind, led by grinning Maredudd the brewer, collected together in the wide courtyard. As they helped assemble the bonfire on the middle of the courtyard paving stones, the men sang rowdy tunes accompanied by teulu members on the bowed crwth and the pipes. Some of the older teulu (all of one and twenty years) dragged a few of the hall maids out into the yard for an impromptu dance. The kitchen servants began preparations for curing the meat that the hunt would bring in, doing as much of it as possible outside the kitchen scullery to enjoy the weather and the music. Even when Marged sat down with Gwilym to finesse details for the supper feast, they sat on the hall steps watching the dancing and marveling at the warmth in the air. It was an afterthought, but Gwilym politely invited the queen to join them, and so only the sewing bevy remained inside, within the queen’s solar, working on a couple of twill weaving projects and staring out over the river at the gentle swell of hillside, watching for the hunting party.
When the meeting was over and the spontaneous carousing in the yard had quieted, the queen helped Marged in the kitchen until there was no room for her unskilled hands in the growing crowd of workers, and finally, brushing oat flour off her skirt and feeling happily involved with something other than distaff chores, she retired toward her chamber. It was barely midmorning. On the balcony outside the door, she heard the three young women murmuring together with a growing urgency. “Milady, look!” they said nearly in unison as she entered, and they gestured out the window together.
The glorious blue still dominated the sky, but huge white clouds in exotic shapes were rising over the northern hills. Standing out in sharp relief against the clouds was the hunting party, returning early, two dozen men on foot and horseback meandering their way slowly down the grassy slope, skirting gorse bushes and green-and-russet swaths of dying bracken. The marshal led a pony in full tack that had no rider in the saddle, and the huntsman, his scowl visible even from a distance, led a sumpter horse that had something thrown over it. Something like an animal but far too large for winter game.
“Who is that?” Isabel asked, squinting and moving toward the window.
“We think it’s Gwirion,” Angharad replied. “Isn’t that his mare?”
“What’s happened? They shouldn’t be home for half a day yet.”
“He must have done something,” announced Madrun, wide-eyed, but Angharad shook her delicate blond head.
“He looks hurt, I think someone did something to him.”
“And where are the dogs?” asked Generys. “The dogs aren’t with them.”
“They sent the runner ahead this way,” said Angharad.
“Stay here,” the queen instructed. “I’m going down to meet them at the gate.”
She rushed back down the stairs and crossed the hall to the crowded, noisy kitchen. “Has there been a messenger from the hunt?” she demanded above the din.
A score of voices called, “No, Majesty,” and she headed out of the kitchen and into the yard. A long-legged boy in Noble’s livery was approaching her from the barbican gate, out of breath. In this high country, footing everywhere was treacherous, so swift travel on horseback was impossible; runners were the preferred couriers.
“Your Majesty,” the boy gasped, and bowed. “I have a message from the king.”
“Rise and speak.”
“I am to give the message to the steward.”
The steward, of course the steward, not the queen. Peeved, she gave him leave to find the man. “I’ll be in the king’s receiving room,” she said, “should Gwilym condescend to share the news with me.”
Gwilym and the runner arrived at the round white room just moments after she had. The boy was not recovered from his final sprint, but he couldn’t wait to give his important news, so he blurted it out between breaths. “His Majesty is bringing a criminal home and wants the prison cell prepared to receive him. He’ll hang him tomorrow at dawn in the village, and in the meantime, there is no game meat for tonight’s supper and the feast of All Hallows’ is canceled.”
“Who’s the criminal?” she asked, perversely thrilled. Based on what she’d seen, the crime was obvious: Somebody had hurt Noble’s darling Gwirion.
“The criminal is Gwirion. His crime is sorcery,” the boy announced.
They gaped at him. “Sorcery?” stammered Gwilym, barely maintaining his unflappable demeanor.
“Yes, sir. He bewitched the dogs and made them afeared of the animals they were supposed to hunt.”
Queen and steward exchanged amazed looks. “You can’t mean that, boy,” Gwilym insisted.
“Milord, I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with these eyes. We put them on the scent, and they yelped and whined like someone had stepped on their paws. They put their tails between their legs and tried to hide behind the horses. It was the most unnatural thing I’ve ever seen.”
“How did the king stop them?”
“He couldn’t stop them, Majesty. Nor the chief huntsman. They told Gwirion to take the spell off; he laughed and laughed and said he couldn’t, it was no spell, it’s how they were. His Majesty thought it was funny at first, but not when Gwirion said he couldn’t fix it. They even put the whip on him to make him undo it, but he wouldn’t.”
“My God, he’s so perverse,” the queen said under her breath.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that, Majesty,” the boy said, looking briefly embarrassed. “He thought it was right funny, though. He laughed up until they started whipping him.”
She winced. “I saw him slung over the packhorse.”
“Yes, Majesty. He’s not laughing anymore. I think he’s scared now.”
“Disaster always follows when Gwirion gets scared,” the queen muttered. She turned to the steward, who looked to be in shock. “Gwilym, take the news to the kitchen, and ask them to put it around the court. I’m going to meet the hunting party at the gate.” She’d never given Gwilym an order before and despite the upset of the moment, she was pleased with herself. He bowed his head with dignified coolness and she hurried out of the room, wondering what was really going on. Obviously Noble could not mean to do it.
As she reached the steps of the hall, the riders entered the bailey, and the solemnity of the procession made her stop short. Gwirion still lay facedown over the sumpter horse, strapped by his wrists and ankles. He was whimpering and he looked too miserable to be alive. His face was a shocking greyish-green, his belt was gone, his faded tunic and shirt were both shredded along the back from the whip, and angry welts were storming up where it had dug into the skin.
Noble, by contrast, was furious but elegant and collected. His broad, grandly handsome face was as stony as a statue, his brown hunting outfit was unsullied by an actual hunt, and his horse was barely exercised. He dismounted, handed the reins to his groom, and gestured toward Gwirion without actually looking at him. “Have Einion put him in the cellar,” he said, between clenched teeth. “Waste no food on the wretch for dinner or supper.” Head bowed, he began walking toward the tower that contained his bedchamber, his fists clenching and unclenching.
“Noble, wait!” the queen cried out after him, rushing down the steps to catch up with him near the well. He stopped and turned back to face her, and she went down on one knee, her silk skirt pressing into the sandy mud.
“Oh, for God’s sake don’t do that,” he said impatiently, and pulled her up with unusual roughness. For a moment their faces were very close and she saw something in his eyes that frightened her—beneath the cool exterior he looked crazed. By now the entire hunting party, a number of the teulu, and many of the kitchen staff were watching, and he addressed the whole yard, looking annoyed that he was expected to speak. “There is no game today. At all. And there’ll be no meat for the rest of the winter, unless we slaughter all the livestock, and even then some of you will probably starve. He did something to the dogs, they wouldn’t hunt. That’s not a prank, it’s not the license of a fool, it’s treason. He’s put the court in danger.”
“Where are the dogs?” Isabel asked.
“The dogs are dead,” he said harshly, and turned the crazed glance back to her as if daring her to criticize him. “I had the archers shoot them all. He’d ruined them.”
“Sire, as I tried to point out—” stammered the agitated chief huntsman, whom Noble was not fond of under the best of circumstances.
“I am not interested in anything you have to say on the matter,” Noble cut him off angrily. “The dogs would not hunt, they were afraid of the scent.”
“Ask the barons for dogs as part of their tribute for the year,” the queen said. Noble stared at her.
“I intend to,” he replied. “That’s not the issue here.” He turned and continued toward the wooden staircase outside his tower. She moved with him, lowering her voice. “Noble,” she whispered, their backs to the yard, “I agree he should be punished for this, but a death sentence is absurd.” He glared at her and began walking faster, balling one hand into a fist and closing the other one around it. She forced herself to continue, straining to keep her voice too low to be heard. “Noble, stop. You’re angry right now, and you’re right to be angry, but please don’t act out of anger.” They were at the bottom of the stairs now, and he took the first step up, cutting her off from following. “You regretted it with Adèle—you will never forgive yourself if you hurt Gwirion. He’s your closest friend. You don’t know what that loss is like. I do.” She took his hand, which was still a fist, and tried to meet his eyes; he wouldn’t look at her. He turned on his heel and walked slowly up the wood steps toward his room, signaling the porter before disappearing from sight.
She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly aware of a chill. She’d slipped off her surcoat while she sat listening to Marged and Gwilym and wore only a thin kirtle now. Several people approached her offering her their mantles and cloaks, but she brushed them all aside. “I’m fine,” she announced. “Someone make certain Gwirion is fed.”
“Your Majesty,” said Gwilym quietly. “The king said there will be no food wasted on—”
“Give him my portion,” she ordered.
She stood there, unmoving, and listened to the buzz behind her slowly fade. She heard Gwirion lifted off the horse, moaning as he was carried to the barbican and down into the holding cell. She heard the horses led past her to the stables, and the hushed gossip of teulu and castle workers fade away. The playfulness of the morning was harshly extinguished.
By now the sky was definitely clouding over. She wished her husband were superstitious enough to take this as an omen that he was making a mistake. Certainly she had never liked Gwirion, but she’d never truly wished him dead. Only Adèle had made that mistake. How could Noble possibly exterminate the only person in the world he loved?
With a gasp of insight, she ran up the stairs, into the tower and Noble’s chamber. “Sire,” she called from the anteroom, pounding on the door, choking back relieved laughter now. “Noble, I know what you’re up to, and you’ve won your point. You don’t have to go through with it.”
There was a moment of silence and then he pulled the door open so fast that she jumped. “And what do you think I’m up to?” he demanded, glowering down at her with the furious gleam still in his eyes.
She was taken aback by his intensity, but made herself smile up at him. “You want to make me beg for his life. You want me to come to his defense so I’ll appreciate him. And I do, I do appreciate him, so you’re very clever and devious and it worked brilliantly, but please,
please don’t continue this nonsense.” She sank to her knees and looked up at him. “I am officially begging for Gwirion’s life.”
He was condescending and disgusted. “I wouldn’t threaten Gwirion’s life just to make you ‘appreciate’ him. But by your reaction, I could be doing it—although I’m not—to test the theory that you always oppose me, no matter what the circumstance.”
“Noble,” she protested, getting to her feet. “That’s nonsense.”
“You defend a man you despise rather than support me,” he said. “You beg clemency for a man whom you yourself conspired to kill little more than a month ago, just to contradict me—trust me, madam, I won’t forget that.” She tried to interrupt but he silenced her with a furious glare. “And for Gwirion, this will be an actual execution, and he brought it upon himself, with no assistance from you. What we saw today frightened my bravest men. It truly felt ungodly. It has nothing to do with my personal feelings.” His voice caught and he looked away from her angrily. “Cutting off my own arm would be less painful—but were it gangrenous, I’d cut it off.”
“I don’t understand how you can do this,” she protested.
He touched his slender crown of gold and garnet, and then her slighter circlet. “That is because I wear this and you wear only that,” he said coldly, and slammed the door on her.
GWIRION was in the same cell he had shared with Corr less than six months earlier, but the internment was infinitely more traumatic this time. Despite the cooling unguents Marged had slathered on his wounds, he was in throbbing pain, and lay curled on his side on the damp floor. He knew the king’s step and it was not the king who was approaching. It was a woman. But not Marged coming back. Not Enid, even if it could have been Enid. He had never bothered to learn the queen’s step. This could have been her, but there was no reason for her to come down here. Except perhaps to gloat. In her position, Gwirion admitted to himself, he probably would have.
Einion stood straighter, and awkwardly bowed his head toward the approaching person. Without uncurling, Gwirion stretched his neck slightly up toward the bars of the door to see.
“Your Majesty,” he said, still confused, when he realized it was the queen kneeling down to see him. “Pardon me but I’m not getting up.”
“It wasn’t really sorcery, was it?” she asked. She felt ridiculous. “Why don’t you tell him what really happened?”
“I did.” This was a piss-poor time for the woman to decide to play the good Samaritan, he thought. What feminine self-indulgence. “I told him what I did and he refused to believe me. Even the huntsman backed my claim, and he hardly knows how to open his mouth.”
“What did you do?”
“I switched the dogs,” he said, and laid his pounding head back down on the cool stone floor. “Last spring, Corr and I saved a litter of runts from drowning, and I hid them with a farming family near the village. The son Ithel smuggles them into the woods by the tourney field and we’ve been training them this whole time to go against their instincts and act frightened when they smell their prey. They were so good at it!” He sounded almost fatherly.
“And you switched the runts with the castle dogs?”
“Yes. Of course the huntsman could tell right away, but I begged him not to reveal it, and he likes me, so he kept mum. Then when we found the scent…” He chuckled painfully. “It was extraordinary. You’ve never seen so many bewildered men in your life.” He sobered. “And the king killed all of them. All of my pups. Right in front of me—they were like children to me.”
“He thought you’d bewitched the real dogs.”
“But the huntsman told him. As soon as he saw what I was up to, as soon as he saw that I’d be in trouble for it, he told the king these weren’t the castle hounds, and the king would not believe him.”
“Why not?”
“I think you refused to spread your thighs for him again unless he got rid of me.”
“Gwirion,” she said sharply, and moved away from the bars. She had been leaning into them, hanging on his words, without realizing it.
“He was willing to entertain the notion that they were changelings, but I couldn’t prove it,” Gwirion explained, too exhausted to go into detail. “We were near the farmstead, and he sent Efan, the penteulu, there to find the boy and the real hounds, but he came back saying the farm was deserted. I don’t understand that part—Ithel was supposed to be waiting there with the real pups to return them.” He sighed. “Please let me sleep. I’m in a lot of pain right now.”
“Of course you are, I’m sorry,” she said, and stood to leave. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
There was a pause, and then a slight rustle, as if he was trying to move. She couldn’t see clearly enough, and anyhow he grunted and stopped abruptly. “Tell him I’m sorry for offending him,” he said. He sounded bitter. “But I’m flattered he found my prank so…significant.” A pause. “And tell him I hope he has a long and joyful marriage, and many healthy sons.”
“Thank you,” she said awkwardly.
“I didn’t say with you.”
He grinned despite his pain, listening to her irritated departure.
AFTER letting the chandler in to light the fire, the king refused to speak with anybody for the rest of the day, with the brief exceptions of the court justice and the chaplain. Goronwy appeared at His Majesty’s door, wheezing slightly from the effort of lifting his weight an entire flight of steps but insisting it was his duty to intercede: Only a judge might mete out punishment. The king welcomed him into his chamber long enough to point out that the judge meted out punishment according to the Law of Wales, which did not recognize sorcery, and the case was therefore out of his jurisdiction. The meeting lasted less than a minute. An hour later, Noble summoned knobby-knuckled, liver-spotted Father Idnerth to his chamber to write out the official condemnation, to be read the next morning on the gallows.
After Idnerth was free, Gwilym as steward called an urgent meeting in the council chamber, even remembering to invite the queen, but it came to nothing beyond frustrated, baffled conjecture. The chaplain and judge both testified from their brief encounters with him that the king was deeply distressed but absolutely inflexible about his decision. The huntsman swore they had not been his dogs, but he couldn’t find his own anywhere to prove otherwise; Efan had said they hadn’t been where Gwirion claimed they would be. The penteulu himself was absent, leading his charges in some solemn All Hallows’ Eve tradition—which probably had something to do with scaring young women out of their skirts, Gwilym observed sardonically.
SHE did not go to her husband’s chamber that night. But he, claiming lonely wretchedness, came to hers.
She refused him.
“Are you frightened of me now?” he demanded, impatiently. He looked terrifying, his expression one of the fevered intensity of a man who had strayed from reason.
“Of course not,” she lied, pulling away as he tried to push her down onto the bed. “Noble, stop it!” Always uncomfortable when he came to her room, she fidgeted with the tapestry that provided the only privacy from the sewing bevy. “I don’t want his death on my conscience.”
“There’s no reason it should be.” He sat on the bed and gestured for her to come to him. She ignored the gesture.
“He thinks I won’t lie with you unless you kill him.”
“No he doesn’t,” Noble said contemptuously. “He’s playing with you.”
“I need to know in my own heart that that’s not the reason,” she insisted, suddenly grateful that her women were in the room, and the doorkeeper outside was within easy earshot. “The only way I can do that is to refuse you unless you agree to pardon him.”
“And yet a new way to oppose me,” he said, irked. “You will espouse any philosophy, grab any opportunity that lets you thwart me from an heir. Condemn Gwirion, defend Gwirion—whatever will forestall my fathering living issue. Who are you in league with? My cousin? Your uncle? Perhaps Llewelyn? Does Adèle manipulate you still, even from beyond the grave?”
Her eyes widened. “Noble, you don’t mean any of that. That’s ranting.”
“No it’s not, madam,” he said in a low, lethal voice. “Strategy does not become you. If you’re determined not to have my child, just say so, don’t muddy the issue with Gwirion’s fate.”
She almost laughed from frustration. “Gwirion’s fate is the only issue!” At a loss, she untied her robe at the throat and waist and pulled it off, tossing it to the bed. The cold air bit into her skin and she tensed, but she began to pull off her shift as well. “Bed me, then,” she said. “If that’s what it would take to convince you I am only after saving a man’s life, bed me. I will do and be whatever you request if you will just call off this nonsense.”
Noble made a face. “Put your shift back on, your Norman blood can’t take this cold so early in the season. I don’t want to lie with you tonight anyway, it’s not a night to indulge in any form of pleasure. That wretched fool,” he added under his breath, miserably, and left the room too quickly for her even to try to hold him back.
She redressed quickly and went after him. Although the usual games and gatherings were canceled, the courtyard was brilliantly lit by the bonfire, but even so, she lost track of him. He wasn’t in his room. She found him finally in the chapel on his knees, in a pose so mournfully and deeply meditative that he did not hear her approach. His hands were clutched together tightly, his knuckles white. After a few moments, she touched his arm. He opened his eyes and looked at her blankly, with a frightening glint as if he were quite mad. He would not speak, and when she tried to speak to him, he signaled her own priest to remove her.
IN the middle of the night, Gwirion was awakened by Einion prodding at him from above with a stick from between the bars of the cell.
“Get up, you,” the porter said in a muffled tone. “Show some respect for Her Majesty, now.” He thrust a rush light into a brazier by the door.
“Oh, Christ,” Gwirion groaned, and didn’t move. “And what is it this time?”
This was not the reception she’d hoped for. “Gwirion, I want you to know that I did everything I could to talk Noble out of this.”
There was a pause.
Then his voice, reedy and weak: “I’m still in here, so I assume you failed.”
“I’m sorry, but I want you to know I tried.”
“That makes a hell of a difference.”
“You could at least appreciate the effort,” she huffed, and instantly regretted her pettiness.
With a grunt of pain, he raised his head a little to look straight up at her. His face was pale in the rush light and the large eyes were bloodshot, but without his comical grimace, she could hardly recognize her tormentor lying in the straw; indeed, in Noble’s castoffs, he almost looked like an imperiled aristocrat. “I’m sorry, I hurt the lass’s feelings. You’re such a good lass. Doesn’t matter that you’ve spent the last six months trying to estrange me from him, no, all that matters is that at the last hour when it was obvious you could do nothing, you decided to wake me up from my last night of earthly repose just to tell me you could do nothing. Thank you. Thank you! That makes you a good girl, so of course I’m obliged to absolve you from all those sinful months of wishing I was dead.” He tired of the rant suddenly, but she was too shocked to speak. “Milady,” he said in a kinder voice, “you’re doing this because you feel guilty for hating me. You’re not doing it because you crave my continued existence or even my gratitude. It’s the guilty conscience of past days. That’s all it is. Good for you for wrestling with your conscience and letting it win. But let me sleep now.”
She wanted to rip out his tongue. She opened her mouth for a stinging response, but he was quicker.
“The angrier you are, the more what I’ve said is true. And you’re a smart lass, after all, you know I’m right.”
She forgot her retort, but he didn’t expect a reply.
IT was raining slightly, and still dark, when the tiny village green at the foot of the castle mound filled with well-wrapped and bundled-up onlookers: The entire population had come to watch. News that Gwirion was in trouble for a prank would not have made an impression on anyone; even news of his impending execution would have been dismissed as another crazy rumor about him. But the feast of All Hallows’ being canceled affected everyone directly, and gave an unpleasant, heavy credence to the gallows being erected that night. Sudden piety ran rampant. Father Idnerth had offered to hold midnight mass in the village—the king insisted on having the castle chapel to himself—and there was a bigger turnout in the cramped church than anyone could remember. The bard Hywel joined him and in an unprecedented meeting of old and new traditions, half of the evening was given over to the recitation of the bard’s oldest and most sacred poems lamenting dead heroes. This was the day when the veil between the worlds was most transparent, and people were troubled enough about the dead impinging upon the realm of the living; Gwirion’s execution at dawn would reverse the flow in a way that was even more disturbing.
No one in the castle had slept well—except for Gwirion, at last. The superstitious porter had drugged him to keep his powers at low ebb. He would have been grateful if he had known.
While it was still dark, he was roughly woken and hauled out of his cell. In place of regular garrison guards, a dozen armed teulu were to escort him to his hanging. He was told this was a great honor, and responded with a tired, sarcastic laugh. Gwilym silently delivered to him a special outfit of black brocaded silk, and the youngest of the teulu—a boy of fourteen, the only one who didn’t look hungover—helped him to change in the darkness of the porthouse, since his muscles were too cramped and sore, and the skin on his back too raw, for him to manage on his own. The clothes felt strange, only in part because he’d never worn anything so new before. He lived in Noble’s oversize castoffs, but somebody had troubled themselves enough to take in the tunic, the drawers, and even the hose, and he faced the last morning of his existence with the novel experience of wearing clothes that fit properly. With his hands manacled before him, he let the boy escort him out into the courtyard. He was surrounded by the teulu and marched down into the village, squinting against the spattering of raindrops.
He squawked in amazement when he saw the crowd in the cold, grey light creeping over the hills. “All of these people want to watch me die?” he whispered to the little soldier who had helped him dress.
“I wouldn’t take it personally, sir,” the boy replied uncomfortably. “Everyone’s fond of you. But a hanging is a hanging, it’s an event.”
Gwirion looked at him angrily. “Thank you for putting it in perspective,” he said sarcastically, and wouldn’t look at the abashed young man again.
It wasn’t, in the end, to be a hanging. An hour earlier, as the crowd was gathering in the wet, Noble had conferred wearily with the butcher, who doubled as executioner, and decided a beheading was a better idea. It was a more honorable way to die, and Gwirion deserved at least that much. So the low scaffold remained, but the gallows were struck and an executioner’s block was waiting for them. The king in sackcloth, a growing look of madness on his face and his hair as unkempt as the convict’s usually was, sat with his irate wife who clutched her rosary, on a temporary covered dais that had been erected to the side of the green.
In the cold, ashy dawn, one of the teulu nudged Gwirion toward the rough wooden step to the scaffold with the butt of a spear. He raised his foot onto the first step.
Another nudge. The next step.
Another nudge. The next step. It was the slowest climb up a flight of stairs Gwirion had ever made.
His insides felt full of mud. If he could somehow wash the mud away, the insanity would stop and Noble would restore him to grace. When he reached the top step and saw the executioner’s block rather than the gallows, he froze.
“It’s a token of honor,” the king called out.
Without taking his eyes off the block, Gwirion called back, “I don’t want honor, I want life.”
The crowd collectively made a strange sound, as if it had expected to hear a quip, was already prepared to laugh at it, and then realized it wasn’t one. It was unnerving to see the antic fellow dressed not in his usual ragtag garments, but in a neat black silk tunic and hose. Someone had combed his hair and even tamed his cowlick—a rare event—and rubbed water across his face. He looked presentable. He almost looked handsome, his sharp, wily features suddenly seeming chiseled. Worst of all, he looked normal, no less and no more eccentric than anyone else in the square. There was nothing there but a frightened man who couldn’t take his eyes off the executioner’s block.
“Someone offer him water,” the king said in a tight voice, clearing his throat, and his hands clenched briefly into fists. The executioner’s young son, dressed and masked like his father, stepped forward with a bucket of water and a wooden ladle. He offered it to Gwirion, who wanted to refuse it but couldn’t. Despite the rain his lips were dry and cracked, and he was hungry. He could hardly swallow, but the boy held the ladle steady for him and he awkwardly sipped some.
“Thank you, lad,” he said. The boy put the ladle aside and wouldn’t look at him. Gwirion studied the boy’s mouth, set in a tight grimace, and his nervous, fidgety body language. He remembered when he’d taught this boy to juggle.
At an anxious nod from the king, the teulu fell into formation around and behind Gwirion holding up their spears, and moved closer to the block. He hesitated but then moved with them. A trumpet sounded. Father Idnerth’s assistant, as herald, unrolled the parchment scroll that the king had dictated the night before. “Gwion called Gwirion of Maelienydd, you have been sentenced by Maelgwyn ap Cadwallon ap Madoc ap Idnerth ap Cadwgan to die,” he read loudly and unsteadily. Noble shifted his weight in his chair, looking burdened by the recitation of his formal name. “Insofar as you bewitched the royal hounds to turn them off the scent, you have rendered the castle incapable of self-sufficiency and placed the lives of His Majesty and members of the royal court and all their servants in dire jeopardy. You are therefore doubly condemned, for sorcery and for treason.” He lowered the scroll because it was getting rained on, but continued to recite, without looking at Gwirion. “What are your last words, sir?”
Gwirion couldn’t think of anything to say. Something cutting and witty would have been best, but anything at all would have served. His mind was blank. He opened his mouth relying as he often did on intuition, and realized he had lost his voice. Finally, in a hoarse whisper that couldn’t be heard beyond the scaffold, he managed to sound out the words, “Don’t you want to know where the real hounds are?”
It was repeated by one of the teulu so that the king could hear it. He frowned and made a desperate, impatient sound, caught between annoyance and pain. “No, Gwirion, I’m not playing that game. This is unbearable. Get on with it,” he ordered, his voice on the edge of breaking. He looked away, and at his gruff but shaky signal the penteulu shoved Gwirion down onto his knees before the block.
“Noble!” Gwirion suddenly screamed across the green. “Don’t do this! These people know our friendship—if you cast me off like this, they’ll know you for an irrational tyrant and they’ll rise up in arms!”
“Noble, please—” Isabel said at once, turning in desperation toward him as the crowd began a distraught mutter.
“Enough!” Noble thundered, his eyes flashing. He pointed to the executioner and demanded in a quavering voice, “Do it.”
Efan tied a rag around Gwirion’s eyes and then with a jerk lowered his forehead onto the damp block. The crowd froze. Gwirion trembled violently but made no sound. Isabel turned her head away. “Watch,” Noble commanded, grabbing her shoulder in his trembling grasp. There was a bitter intensity on his face, almost a brutality, that terrified her.
The executioner cleared his throat, and lifted the axe to his shoulder. Behind him, Idnerth began chanting quietly in Latin, although he had not formally given Gwirion last rites or even offered a final shrift. He knew the fellow would not have accepted.
The executioner lifted the axe over his head, and looked at the king.
The king nodded, looking wretched.
The executioner glanced at his son.
The son dumped the bucket of water over Gwirion’s head. Gwirion yelled in shock and fell over.
A mass of confused faces turned toward Noble, who opened his mouth wide and roared with laughter. A nervous chuckle of relief circled around the green, but the hundreds of onlookers combined did not drown out his hilarity.
The executioner had put down his axe at once, and had already unshackled Gwirion’s hands and removed his blindfold. “Here you go, then,” he said gently, and tried to help Gwirion to his feet. But Gwirion could barely sit up. He glared at the king like a frenzied bantam cock. The expression, familiar in its ferociousness, reassured the crowd and they laughed.
Isabel did not laugh. She rose and marched down from the covered dais, and on foot made her way through the rain, back up toward the castle, appalled and unescorted. Noble didn’t notice her leave.
“I convinced you, didn’t I?” he howled. Gwirion glared at him. “I convinced the lot of you!” He slapped his hands on his knees. “A round for the executioner and his son!” He began applauding them and the crowd obediently followed. The two masked figures nodded sheepishly and looked as if they wanted to hide.
AFTER inviting the assembled crowd to join him in the great hall for ale, which rendered them even more appreciative of his handiwork, Noble went in search of Gwirion.
He made straight for the kitchen, knowing that Marged would be mothering him after the shock. His Majesty seldom came in here and the kitchen workers were flustered, but he waved them aside.
“Where is he?” he asked, grinning, and they parted for him nervously.
Marged had settled Gwirion on her only comfortable stool, by the fire, and wrapped him in a brychan snatched from his bed. He was holding a cup of something steaming hot, but he was trembling so much he spilled a bit every time he brought it to his lips. The king slapped him chummily on the arm, and the cup crashed to the floor.
“Oh, dear.” Noble laughed. “Someone get him another.” Nobody moved, but the king didn’t notice. “That was brilliant, wasn’t it?” he chuckled. “I bet you can’t top it.”
“You should be whipped,” Gwirion said. Noble laughed and the assembly tittered nervously. “I’m serious. You really should be whipped.”
“Can’t you swallow your own medicine?” Noble teased.
“What medicine? I’ve never pretended I was going to kill anyone!” Gwirion squealed. “That wasn’t amusing. Embarrassment is amusing. Comeuppance is amusing. Terror is not amusing.”
“You don’t think that was inspired? I gave a consummate performance—nobody understood me, but nobody thought I was faking.” He was too pleased with himself to stop smiling.
With a deliberate grunt of righteous annoyance, Marged picked up the spilled cup and signaled Dafydd to get a fresh one. Gwirion continued to stare at the king. His relief at being alive was almost entirely negated by his fury. “Dignity can be trifled with. Not mortality.”
Noble was abruptly sober. “You’re absolutely right,” he said pedantically. “Which is why I had to punish you for making thirty men believe they’d starve this winter.”
“If you hadn’t meddled, they’d only have thought that for a moment!” Gwirion snapped. “I stared my mortality in the face for the whole of a day and a night!”
“I was visiting upon you the collected fear those thirty felt both for themselves and for their families.” He smiled, softening. “With a little interest, perhaps, just to raise the stakes and prove that I can beat you at your own game.”
Gwirion grabbed hold of a hearthstone and pulled himself up. His green pallor deepened into a very unattractive purple and he hurled himself at the king, screaming. There were no teulu here, no guards, no one but the kitchen servants, and they were all far too flustered to do anything besides gasp and yelp and wring their hands. But Noble was stronger than Gwirion and managed to fend off his friend’s enraged attack. He held Gwirion almost like a poppet at arm’s length, and shook him hard to get his attention—but the king was more startled than angered. “You’re a terribly sore loser,” he complained.
Gwirion sprang to life again, trying in vain to scratch at the king’s face. “Ogre!” he screeched. “You bastard son of a whore devil, I’ll rip your liver out with my teeth, you mud-sucking leprous swine!”
The crowd drew back with eyes widening and mouths closing into nervous little Os. Noble was hard-pressed to keep Gwirion under control; he finally shoved him back down on the stool, pulled a dagger from his belt, and pressed it against Gwirion’s throat. Gwirion grunted and then sat back, panting, staring murderously up. “Go ahead, do it,” he snapped. “Or better yet, pierce me enough to do some serious harm and then tell us all it was just a prank.”
“There’s been no serious harm, you fool,” Noble said with condescending affection. “You’re fine.”
“I am not fine! You scourged me yesterday for no good reason, you whoreson!”
The dagger remained where it was to keep Gwirion seated; otherwise, Noble acted as if this were a friendly chat, enjoying his performance and his audience. “That was to make it believable,” he said reasonably. “If I didn’t seem absolutely incensed, someone—you, even—might have known it was all in play. My God, do you know how difficult it was? I didn’t tell anyone—except Efan before I sent him out to find the farmstead, so he would know to say it was deserted, but otherwise not a single soul, until this morning when I met with the butcher. I had an elaborate plan for a false hanging, but he warned me something might stick and you’d get hurt, so we agreed on the bucket of water instead. It wasn’t gratuitous violence against you. I did what was necessary for the trick to work, that’s all. Trust me, if you really had done something to the dogs, you’d have been in for a far worse fate. The flogging was a mild one, Lord knows you’ve weathered worse. You’ll be fine.”
“I just faced my own death,” Gwirion said.
“So did my entire court,” Noble said sharply, but then he grinned and gave Gwirion a comradely nudge with his elbow. “You’re taking this in the wrong spirit,” he insisted. “Honestly, Gwirion, you disappoint me. I think of you as a master craftsman. Can’t you appreciate somebody else’s comic craftiness?”
“It would have been comical,” Gwirion said, “only if I’d died of fright when the water hit me. That would have been comical.”
“No it wouldn’t!” Noble said, shocked. “That would have been horrible.”
“And comical,” Gwirion insisted. “Then at least there’d be irony.”
“You don’t think it’s ironic as it stands?” demanded Noble. Gwirion ignored him.
Little Dafydd carefully handed Gwirion another cup of the brew. There was a commanding silence as he wrapped his hands around it and shivered from the pleasure of the heat.
Noble finally put up his blade. “I am disappointed,” he said. “I really did it to entertain you.”
Gwirion gave him a weary and withering glance. “I do a grand job of entertaining myself, sire—it’s not something you’re properly trained to do.”
“The crowd liked it.”
“How lovely for the crowd. How lovely for the chroniclers. You’ll be remembered as the king who pretended he was going to kill his prankster—as a prank. Don’t tell me you didn’t think of that.” He took a slow sip of the infusion. There was brandy in it, he noticed gratefully.
“It wasn’t just as a prank, Gwirion. Besides.” Noble smiled. “There are other things I hope to be remembered for.”
“I meant things they can tell children about,” Gwirion retorted. People laughed nervously. Noble looked at all of them, considering something.
“Leave us,” he ordered.
He watched the servants scurry from the kitchen, and when he was alone with Gwirion, turned back to him. Gwirion would not look him in the face, just continued to sip his warm, inebriating medicine. There was an awkward silence.
“I did nothing wrong,” Noble finally said. “But I am sorry this did not go over with you the way I thought it would.” Gwirion said nothing. Noble cleared his throat. “And I am sorry you suffered such anguish, really I didn’t think it would affect you so deeply. I was seeing myself in your situation—I would have responded differently, but that’s how I was trained.”
“Oh I see,” Gwirion said with cold sarcasm. “I was supposed to see it through the eyes of a trained soldier. My mistake entirely, Your Majesty. I was seeing it through the eyes of a young boy who decided to throw himself to his king’s assassins so as to distract them from murdering—who was it now? oh, yes—you, Your Majesty.”
Noble was silent for a moment. “I propose a truce. Assure me you understand there must be limits to your mischief, and I will offer restitution for what I put you through.”
“How? Let me get away with something that really is a hanging offense?”
“I’ve done that many times over the years, Gwirion,” the king said patiently. “Perhaps something more immediate.”
“Gold?” Gwirion asked at once. It was a long-lived joke between them that the king would provide Gwirion with anything but money. Gwirion, who could break into every coffer in the castle, didn’t really mind.
“If that’s what it would take. But anyone with means can give you gold. Ask me for something that only I might give you.”
Gwirion nodded, and briefly glanced at his master. “That’s tempting,” he admitted. “I’ll think about it.”
“There isn’t something that comes to mind right away?” Noble pressed, anxious for levity.
“I would ask you to get rid of the queen but she’s the only one who was decent to me yesterday, even when I was a lout to her, so I suppose that maybe she can stay.”
Noble grinned. “She is my wife, you know.”
Gwirion gave him a questioning frown. “Meaning…?”
The king winked.
“You’re disgusting!” Gwirion cried. Then calming himself he immediately added, “You could at least offer me one of your mistresses.” He made a face. “The queen. Yech. I said she could stay, I didn’t say she was attractive. Jesu, Noble, but you’re full of charm today, aren’t you?”
SHE avoided him all day; he hardly noticed. He was enjoying being congratulated by everyone he could find for having staged such a clever prank. That night, he went again to her chamber, and in a rare instance of genuine naiveté, expected a warm response.
She refused him.
“You said you’d refuse me unless I spared his life. I did better than that—I never even meant to take it in the first place.”
She calmly sidestepped away from his reach. “You are demented.”
He pretended to pout. “If Gwirion had no problem with it, I don’t see why you should.”
“I heard about the row in the kitchen. Don’t tell me Gwirion had no problem with it.” She took the stool from the wall loom and placed it by her small dressing table, then began brushing her hair, that heavy mane that always disappointed him with its simple sleekness.
“You of all people ought to understand what I was demonstrating to him. I do not enjoy tormenting my best friend, but my duty is to protect my charges, and the situation required dramatic action.”
That was Adèle’s reasoning, she thought, and nearly said it aloud.
He relaxed onto her bed, watching her. “And I wanted to see what it felt like,” he added, with a confiding smile.
“To kill someone for a thrill?”
“To be Gwirion.”
She put the brush down and stared at him. “Which part of this conversation was I asleep for?”
“I wanted to spend a whole day getting attention for making mischief instead of order. It was wonderful. I wish I could do it more often. Gwirion has the best life of any man alive.”
“Gwirion dresses in rags and isn’t allowed to make eyes at a woman without your permission. And I can’t believe those words are from the man who boasts of never abusing his authority to indulge his whims.”
“It wasn’t a whim, it was valuable research,” Noble said with an impish smile. “To continue such a delightful practice might constitute a whim, but I shall selflessly refrain from doing so.”
“Thank God for that much,” she muttered under her breath. “You’d do less damage making Gwirion king for a day.”
Noble sat up, beaming. “That’s a wonderful idea!” He leapt playfully from the bed and wrapped his arms around her. She tried to push him aside with the brush, but he spun her around to face him, kissing her forehead. “You are my little muse!”
“Be quiet, you’ll wake my women,” she hissed.
“That’s exactly the way to make it up to him. I’ll make him king for a day.”
“What?”
He grinned at her. “Just for a day. Tit for tat. He’s earned it and I can certainly undo whatever mischief he creates in one day.” He hooted with laughter, ignoring her attempts to shush him, and got to his feet. He hovered over her to rifle through the random trinkets on her dressing table. “And especially with your family coming. That uncle of yours, what’s his name, Ralf I think, the one who—what is it?”
She was staring up at him, astonished. “My family? My family is coming?”
“Didn’t I mention it?” he said with false offhandedness and began pacing the room, peering into chests in search of something. “Your brother and your insufferable uncles. Not our beloved Mortimer, of course—just the old coots from the other side. You haven’t got a quill in here by any chance, have you? I really must write this down or I’ll forget it. King for a day.” He chuckled softly to himself.
“When are they coming?” she demanded. She had not seen Thomas since the wedding.
“I expect them tomorrow, probably in the late afternoon. I sent a writ of safe conduct three days ago.”
Her eyes rounded. “When were you planning to tell me this?”
He shrugged. “It’s a working visit, it doesn’t involve you. Do you really have nothing in here to take dictation with?”
“It’s my family.”
“Meaning?”
“I want to see them! I can’t believe I should even have to explain that to you.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt your sewing,” he said mischievously, and leapt toward her to grab the brush away because she truly looked as if she was about to throw it at him. He added, placating, “Family to me is so ubiquitous it’s absolutely meaningless.” He handed her back the brush like a peace offering. “You’re the only family I have that counts,” he said quietly, kissing her neck.
“I’m touched,” she said. “But I don’t believe you—what about Gwirion?”
He made a dismissive gesture. “That’s so much more than family.” He leaned toward her to peck her forehead again, but she pushed him away with a look of annoyance.
She turned back to her mirror, one of the few extravagances in her room, and continued to brush her hair. The thick, straight strands were silky and glistened in the rush light. This was a ritual she relied on whenever there was tension between them in private. She loved her hair, and she knew that he didn’t. It was a perfect way for her to soothe herself without providing him any satisfaction.
“Why is Thomas coming?” she asked.
Noble abandoned his search for a stylus and threw himself sprawling back onto the bed, affecting ennui. He was glad there was an English-style bed in both their chambers; it was a luxury easy to grow used to. “It’s nothing of import to you. Just a few new problems with the border.”
She put down the brush and swiveled on her stool to look at him warily. He was never so casual about these issues. “How can that not be important to me? That’s my land, those are my people.”
The king raised his head slightly and craned his neck to meet her gaze. “You’re a little slow about this, aren’t you?” he said. He gestured around the room. “This is your land now. I am your people.”
“You can’t expect me to stop caring about them just because I’m no longer there. I tended to those people for years. I’d like to know what the problems are.”
“I don’t want you worrying about it.” He grinned. “Women who worry lose their looks.”
“I’m going to worry more if you don’t tell me. Or I’ll ask Thomas tomorrow and believe his version of it.”
Amused, he relaxed his head back against the bed pillows. “Such a stubborn little thing. I forget that sometimes.” He rolled onto his side and propped up his head on a bent arm. “All right, then. Your dear innocent devoted brother has been plotting with Roger Mortimer to invade our kingdom.”
She leapt to her feet, panicked. “That’s a lie!” She rushed to the bed and grabbed his arm, trying to propel him up and off. “Get out! I won’t speak to you if you say such rubbish.”
He laughed and went limp, sprawling on his back again, ignoring her anger. “Be quiet, you’ll wake your women,” he teased. She was bending over him seeking the leverage to pry him into a sitting position, and their faces were close. He smiled at her, an expression that frustrated and perplexed her because it looked so genuine, so utterly without malice, even as he made this inflammatory accusation. “I just need to have a little chat with the boy about some rumors I’ve heard.” He reached out and stroked her cheek. “Just rumors. I don’t want to trouble you with it.”
“Don’t insult me by infantilizing me.”
Impatience flickered in his blue eyes and he spoke more genuinely. “Actually, Isabel, I’m trying to protect you, not insult you.”
“Protect me from what, the real world? You don’t think that’s insulting?”
He scrutinized her for a moment, then chuckled with affectionate sarcasm. “You really are enthrallingly artless. I’m trying to protect you from slander, dearest. Suspicion of all foreigners is high right now and you have not exactly distanced yourself from your Norman identity. Reminding any Welshman of your ties of love or blood to any Norman is not in your best interest.” He looked at her more seriously. “My councilors aren’t idiots, Isabel, they all have suspicions about what really happened when you lost the child. You’re on very thin ice and it grows thinner every time you so much as glance out your solar window to the east. I’m manufacturing your indifference. Then if there is something nefarious going on with Thomas, you might be shielded from being associated with it.”
One panic subsided in favor of another. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for whatever you think is happening,” she insisted.
“There is no reasonable explanation for my brother-in-law signing a sworn oath promising to fight beside Mortimer in all circumstances.”
“His allegiance is with you. You’re holding his sister hostage.”
Noble, still slouching, laughed. “Is that what I’m doing? Let’s agree not to share that perception with our devoted subjects. And for the record, I seem to recall some sort of marriage ceremony last May that we both entered into of our own free will.”
She pulled away from him with frustrated disgust. “What kind of free will? What would have happened to me if I’d refused?”
He propped himself up on his elbow, amused again. “Are you telling me you didn’t want to be a queen?”
Some string inside her pulled so tight it broke. “Queen of what?” she spat, forcing herself to whisper. “I might as well be some minor baron’s wife in England—at least then I’d be a member of civilization and run my own household. I have no sovereignty here at all. You won’t let me oversee anything but an unfinished abbey in the middle of the wilderness! I have no political power or even domestic power, and really, what else is there?”
“Pardon me if I’m putting this too bluntly but there are supposed to be children.” He had sat up on the edge of the bed, his humor replaced with a harsh matter-of-factness. “And I can’t beget children if you won’t let me have you, so if you really want something important to do, take off your clothes and lie down.”
She instinctively clasped her hands over her chest in a protective gesture. “You are a brute.”
Standing and taking a step toward her, he gestured to the bed. “I’m serious, I won’t be refused.” He pulled her to him and uncrossed her arms, cupping a hand over one of her breasts. He felt the familiar flicker of disappointment that she wasn’t more buxom. He would have to find a replacement for Enid soon, someone he could reliably turn to without any of these exhausting complications. He would ask Gwirion to start looking in the morning.
He saw her jaw was twitching, and softened despite himself. Releasing her breast, he put his arms around her gently, a platonic gesture of comfort, kissing the top of her head, rubbing his cheek against her satiny hair. “Never mind, then, I won’t trouble you tonight. I only hope your brother doesn’t trouble us tomorrow.”