OWAIN WAS BUSY all day in council, which was convened at the upper end of the hall since the council chamber wouldn’t hold everyone. Mass had been said here as well, and when it was over Gwirion was entrusted with the children again, with admonitions not to discuss genitals. The usually unflappable duo of steward and usher were so overwhelmed with the details of feeding and housing the guests while also maintaining a presence in the war council that Gwilym, conquering his pride, asked Her Majesty for the honor of her assistance overseeing the daily operations of the household. She was delighted by both the distraction and the chance to be useful; other than the official greeting ceremony, which the king had offered her to be conciliatory, her presence was unwelcome at the war council. The sewing bevy was put out by the new assignment, although it gave them greater opportunity to cross through the hall, hurling demure glances at certain younger members of the court. They dutifully followed their mistress into the kitchen and even kneaded bread, but they had an impressive range of excuses to refuse anything that might splatter sauce or oil on their tunics.
By suppertime Isabel was tired, but revived when they sat at board, returned to the radiance born of Owain’s wide-eyed reverence. She behaved as if the awkward moment on the wall walk had never happened, and before the end of the meal, she was not merely basking in the youth’s attention but actively encouraging it. She made little darting glances with her cat’s eyes at him, often with a smile that bordered on coquettish. She used every excuse to brush against his sleeve or shoulder as they ate, and—apparently—a thrill ran through her with each contact. Gwirion watched with disgust, wondering when the king would correct her, but Noble seemed oblivious.
When supper was over and the trestles struck, the queen allowed Owain to follow her around the hall like a pup, trying to be helpful as she organized the servants to prepare the room for bedding down. There wasn’t a thing he could do, being a guest, a lord, and especially a bumbling, smitten boy, but she encouraged his shadowing because it further publicized the infatuation and that would make it hard for Noble to ignore it. She sent a hall boy to get fresh bedding for one of the spaces that was sectioned off for privacy, and she managed very casually to herd Owain into the area that would be hidden when the curtain was pulled closed. She was reaching out for the curtain when a hand appeared from the other side of it, grabbed it, and whipped it aside. She started as she found herself looking directly into Gwirion’s hard dark eyes. “People are talking,” he muttered under his breath.
She shrugged, a triumphant twist in the corner of her mouth. “Let them talk,” she said, and began to pull the curtain out again. He grabbed it just below her hand and stopped her. “They’re not talking about you. They’re talking about him. You’re going to cause him trouble. To feed your pride.” He gave her a knowing look.
She flushed with anger. “You’re meddling,” she said.
“No, milady.” He smiled. “You are.” He flashed the curtain closed again between them and was gone.
She turned around to look at Owain, who was standing near her politely waiting to be useful, or at least noticed. For a long moment she gazed at him, troubled by Gwirion’s words. Owain, who hadn’t heard the exchange, returned her gaze worshipfully. “Your Majesty?” he whispered at last.
“Owain.” Expectant, even nervous, he took a step toward her. His closeness in the intimate space made her heart beat faster and she suddenly wanted to touch him. Instead she withdrew a step, nearly backing into the curtain, and cleared her throat. “Owain, there are certain circumstances in which men and women may be playful with each other without it…meaning anything.” He blushed. “Apparently that’s not the case here. I’m sorry if I misled you. You are a darling man and I enjoy your attention. But—” The curtain whisked open again behind her and Owain winced. She growled, “Leave me alone, Gwiri—” but was interrupted by her husband’s voice.
“Gwirion?” he asked in an ironic tone. She spun around, inches from his chest, and he looked down at her without expression. “Gwirion is on his way to my chamber. In lieu of public entertainment, the two of you will join us there.”
GWIRION didn’t want to perform privately for this trio, but he grumpily made an excuse to the steward, wrapped his harp in its felt sheath, and downed a mug of ale before trudging as slowly as he could across the bailey, slushy from a wet afternoon snowfall, to the king’s tower. He was the last to arrive. The king stood facing the other two in the middle of the well-lit room, a handsome, patient father hovering over his wayward offspring. He held a slender walking cane that Gwirion thought he remembered seeing earlier with one of the older visitors.
“Sit down, Gwirion, make yourself comfortable. Put the harp anywhere, you won’t be playing it.”
“Am I not performing?”
Noble shook his head. “No. You’re here as witness. As audience. Isn’t that a welcome change?”
Gwirion didn’t respond. As he sat by the fire and laid his harp near him, he saw worry on the queen’s face and troubled confusion on Owain’s.
“Now then,” Noble began, calmly and without a trace of anger. “There’s no need to make a scene over this, but I want to clarify a few things. I am your king. This is my wife. Do you understand?”
Owain blushed and looked astonished. “Sire, I hope you don’t think I had any intention of—”
Ignoring him, Noble turned to her. “It’s not just a matter of your honor, or even my honor, it’s a matter of the realm’s stability. The mere appearance of impropriety from you right now is as dangerous as any reality, especially with Anarawd skulking about with his eyes glued to you. Until there is a son that is absolutely, inarguably mine, your dallying with another man will bring chaos. Even then, you are still mine. Do you understand that? If I see fit to dole you out to some young stud, then I will, but you don’t make those decisions on your own.”
She was aghast. “You may not dole me out to some young stud!” she hissed. “If I’m yours, then I’m only for you.”
“That’s true for my wife, but you’re also my subject,” Noble said evenly. “Are you not? Am I your sovereign?”
“Yes,” she said impatiently.
He turned at last to face Owain directly. “Am I your sovereign?”
“Yes, sire,” Owain stammered.
“Good,” Noble said, smiling. “And here’s a little trial to make sure we all understand what that means.” He backed a step away from them. “Kiss her.”
Owain blinked. “Sire?”
“I told you to kiss my wife. I know you want to and now I’ve ordered you to, so there should be nothing holding you back. Take a step closer to her, place your hand at her waist, and kiss her on the lips.”
“Noble, don’t do this,” she said in a strained voice. “We understand your point, I understand it, I’ll be obedient.”
“If you want to show me you’re obedient, kiss him back when he kisses you. Owain, begin please. Can you see, Gwirion?”
Gwirion said nothing. Owain turned to the queen and bent toward her with an apologetic expression, pecked her on the lips, and pulled away. The king laughed scornfully.
“Not like that!” he said. “A real kiss. Long. Slow. Taste each other’s tongues. Now!” he demanded, banging the cane on the floor.
Again Owain moved toward her. She looked down, her jaw twitching.
“Chin up, madam,” Noble said harshly.
Slowly she lifted her head. Any ambivalence Gwirion had had about this gathering was smashed by the heartbreaking humiliation on her face. Her skin was splotched and her expression was unbearable to Gwirion. He ducked his head away embarrassed, but he heard everything. There was a kiss, a long one, barely maintained through the queen’s ragged breaths. Finally Noble gave them permission to pull apart and Gwirion heard her gasp for air.
“We’re not through,” her husband informed them. “Owain my lad, give me your hand.”
Holding Owain’s right hand in his left one, the king abruptly ripped open the front of her crimson kirtle and slapped Owain’s hand onto her exposed breast. She cried out and tried to pull away but Noble’s free hand held her fast. The fingers of his other hand pressed directly over Owain’s and he squeezed Owain’s fist open and shut around the giving flesh.
“Keep touching her,” Noble ordered, releasing his own hand. “Squeeze her very small breast.” Owain did, again with a profoundly apologetic expression. She looked over his head into the darkness, refusing to satisfy her husband with any reaction. “Slide your hand to the other breast,” Noble ordered, and Owain hesitantly did it. “Does that feel good? Now put your mouth on her breast and suck on it like a mewling baby.”
“Sire, please—” Owain began.
“Do it!” Noble shouted, furious. Owain, grimacing, kissed the queen’s breastbone. “No, not there!” Noble chastised angrily. “Do what I tell you.”
As if her flesh seared his lips, Owain gingerly moved his mouth over first one breast, then the other. She teetered, barely breathing.
Finally Noble announced, “You may stand up,” and Owain pulled away from her, avoiding her eyes, his cheeks crimson. For a long moment there was complete silence in the room except for Isabel’s unsteady breathing. Then Noble smiled at them with tremendous indulgence. “I know it’s hard to believe right now, but I’ve done this as a favor to both of you. Oh, yes,” he said in response to the glare his wife gave him. “Now that your attraction is irreversibly intertwined with humiliation and guilt, it will be much easier to resist it. I’m assisting you in averting adultery. Admittedly I have something to gain from that, as does the entire kingdom of Maelienydd except perhaps my cousin, but the real onus is on the two of you. Do we all understand why this had to happen? Do we?” he pressed when they didn’t reply.
“Yes, milord,” they both murmured.
“Good.” He smiled. “But I want to be certain. So, my good friend Owain, you are going to do one more thing to demonstrate that you understand both your own status and my wife’s.” Cordially, he held out the cane to him. “You are going to beat her.”
Owain stared at the stick as if it were poisonous. “I will not harm the queen,” he said in a shaky voice. “She is my sovereign lady—”
“Nonsense. I’m your sovereign lord and she’s my consort, the rest is all polite trimmings for minstrels to sing about. If I hadn’t married her, the kingdom wouldn’t even be in this predicament with Mortimer. We may be out on a battlefield together soon, my friend, and I must believe that I can trust my men to follow my orders without question. If you can’t do that here, you can’t do it out there, and I’ll have to treat you as a deserter. You know what I do to deserters. So take the cane and hit her. Hard.”
Owain looked ill as he reached out for the cane. Noble turned his shaking wife around and swept the long train of her headdress forward over her shoulder, then calmly ripped open the back of the kirtle so that she was exposed from neck to waist. Too disturbed to resist, she crossed her arms over her breasts and tensed against the blow.
Owain raised the cane to the level of his elbow. “Higher,” Noble demanded. Owain raised it an inch. “Higher,” Noble said, and repeated the demand until Owain held the cane far above his head. He drew a breath and steeled himself to strike.
In the hesitation before Owain’s blow, Gwirion darted from his place by the fire and leapt up high enough to grab the cane from Owain’s uncertain grasp. As soon as he landed he broke the cane over his knee with a muttered curse. He threw the pieces to the floor at the king’s feet and glared at him, rubbing his shin.
The king glared back.
Then he burst out laughing.
“Anyone but you would already be halfway to the gallows, fool,” Noble said companionably.
“If you’d kill someone over that, you’re not even fit to rule sheep,” Gwirion snarled.
Still the king smiled. “And you’re the only one who can get away with that as well. You owe Twdor a cane, by the way.” Gwirion glowered at him. “But you realize, of course, that you must balance rights with responsibility. You’re allowed such behavior only because you’re also obedient. Be obedient now, and kiss the queen.”
“Go to hell!”
“Or I’ll have you publicly whipped.”
“And what reason are you going to give out? You’re punishing me because I refused to molest your wife? Me, Noble?” Gwirion demanded in disgust, and throwing the door open he walked out of the room, limping a little from the cane’s resistance.
They stood there a moment looking after him. Then Noble cleared his throat and turned back to his two pupils. “Well, that ruined the mood, now, didn’t it?” He smiled. “All right, then, lesson learned.” Turning to Owain he said in a very deliberate tone, “I am sure we can all agree that this never happened.” The young man nodded, silent and distressed, and Noble sent him away with an almost smarmy wave.
Alone, the royal couple studied each other. He picked up a blanket lying near the hearth, and wrapped it loosely around her shoulders. The gentleness of the gesture startled her, and she almost collapsed against him. He put his arms around her and helped her to the edge of the bed, then sat her down and lifted her legs onto the feather mattress so that she was reclining. He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll have the kitchen send you up metheglin to soothe your nerves,” he said softly.
“Where are you going?” she asked as he went for the door.
“To find Gwirion.”
“Please—” She sat up, with a desperate look on her face. “Please don’t punish him, Noble.”
He stared at her. “You still are such a foreigner here,” he said quietly, and left.
NOBLE went personally to the kitchen to order medicinal mead for the queen, and then to ask for Gwirion. “I need to speak with Huw ap Maredudd and his wife,” he told another servant. “If they’re not in hall listening to Hywel, they’re in the visitors’ tower. Tell them to meet me in the audience room.”
It took longer to find Gwirion; by the time he was ushered into the whitewashed chamber, Noble had completed his business with the famously unorthodox couple, and Huw had already departed. His wife reclined quietly on one of the guests’ bedrolls. She wore a dark long tunic, blending into the low-lit room. Gwirion was too busy being sullen to notice her. He cleared his throat to announce his arrival and crossed his arms, radiating sulky defiance.
“The queen asked me not to punish you,” Noble said, standing in front of the fire.
“You weren’t planning to punish me,” Gwirion snapped back. “What do you want?”
“I have a peace offering, actually.”
“Gold?” Gwirion said sarcastically.
“No, better than that. A woman.”
“Your wife?” he asked with disgusted sarcasm.
“No, a willing woman. A wanting woman, even.” A throaty female chuckle from near the floor made Gwirion turn to look just as Noble introduced her. “This is Branwyn, wife of Huw ap Maredudd. You intrigue her. That makes you a lucky fellow, trust me.”
Gwirion recognized the siren who had exited Noble’s room the night before. She was lounging in a position intended to encourage him to simply fall on top of her, and for a moment he gawked, astonished and willing to forgive the king anything. Then, unexpected and unwelcome, a wave of anger smashed against him. “Where’s your husband?” he demanded.
“Gwirion, that’s rude. Introduce yourself properly.”
“My name is Gwirion and I want to know where your husband is.”
Branwyn, amused by his brashness, purred, “He’s occupied.”
“Is he occupying the same boy as last night?”
“I don’t know, it might be a girl tonight,” she said mildly, and rearranged her limbs a little, invitingly.
“It’s no concern of yours, Gwirion,” Noble said, shifting with almost imperceptible discomfort.
“I saw the boy this morning. He was in bad shape.”
Unconcerned, the woman shrugged. “They bounce back quickly at that age.”
“That’s an appalling attitude.”
She had a low, throaty laugh. “It’s just a servant boy, I’m sure he’s used to it. You surprise me, Gwirion. You struck me as someone who’d approve of entertainment no matter what the form.”
“Is Huw with the boy right now?” Gwirion demanded.
“I believe he was headed that way, but I don’t spy on him.”
Gwirion spun around and ran out the door. There was a pause.
“Did I scare him?” Branwyn asked.
“No,” Noble said in an aggrieved voice. “He’s going to the stables.”
“Does he know that boy?”
Noble hesitated. “He’s been that boy,” he finally said, a rare note of pain in his voice.
THE stables and smithy were across the courtyard from the hall. Gwirion approached at a run, skidding on slush, and came to a slithering halt outside the tack room. The noises coming from within needed no explanation. He shoved open the door and rushed in.
Huw had set a torch in the wall brace and what Gwirion saw made him shriek with rage. He flew at the baron and tore him off the boy, pushed the boy out of the room, and then shoved Huw to the floor and threw himself on him. Huw fell hard under his own bulk, but he was a trained fighter and collected himself immediately, and once Gwirion lost the element of surprise he was in trouble. When the king ran into the room moments later, Gwirion’s face was cut and bleeding and one of his eyes was swelling shut. Huw was threatening him with a dagger, indignantly tugging up his drawers with his free hand.
“Stop!” the king demanded in panic. Huw checked himself with disgruntlement.
“This mongrel attacked me unarmed, without provocation! I—”
“He’s not right in the head,” Noble said quickly. “He’s out of his wits, you can’t hold him accountable for his actions.”
“I was assaulted! Who’s responsible, then?” Huw demanded.
“I am. Petition to me for redress.”
Huw was angrily taken aback, and Noble didn’t wait for a reply. He knelt down beside his cowering friend, lifted him in his arms, and carried him out of the room, past the dumbstruck baron.
SHE had almost drifted off to sleep when a commotion outside startled her to alertness. Gethin threw the door open and Noble entered hurriedly with something in his arms that looked like a huge rag poppet. She gasped when she realized it was Gwirion and saw the state that he was in.
“What happened?” she cried as he laid Gwirion before the hearth.
“He was playing Defender of the Subjugated again but he took on a little more than he could manage,” Noble said, annoyed, and stuck his head out the door, asking the doorkeeper to bring Marged up with her healing tinctures. “He’ll have to stay up here tonight.”
“On the floor?”
“What choice is there?” Noble said sharply, pushing the harp out of the way.
He moved briskly around the room, opening the carved wooden chests lining the walls in search of brychans and cushions. As he set about making a nest for Gwirion to curl up in, she swept the blankets off her legs and got up. “Let him have the bed,” she said. “That chest is nothing but blankets, there’s more than enough for the two of us.”
He stopped what he was doing to look at her. “Are you sure?”
“I owe him at least that. He saved me from a beating.”
“And I saved you from something worse.”
“Fine. You take the bed and Gwirion and I will sleep on the floor together.”
Noble glanced down. She thought it was a gesture of shame at first, then realized he was actually trying to hide a smile. “You don’t have to believe this,” he said, “but I wouldn’t have let him strike you.”
“How gracious of His Majesty not to oblige me to believe it,” she said indifferently, going to the chest and flipping up the lid. She began to pull the blankets out, tossing them into a pile. Noble lifted Gwirion up from the hearth and laid him on the bed.
“I intended to stop his hand. The purpose of that exercise was to make sure of his obedience, it wasn’t to inflict pain on you. You were pained quite enough by then. I wouldn’t have let anything happen.”
“I wouldn’t have let anything happen either.”
“It was already happening,” he corrected. “In front of the collected powers of my kingdom, you of all people were not treating me as king. In front of Anarawd, of all men, who would leap at any excuse to invalidate my offspring.”
She paused in her activity and looked at him for a long moment. Then she turned her attention back to the chest.
THE next morning at breakfast, an uncomfortable silence filled the great hall. Everybody knew that strange things had happened the night before but almost nobody knew what, although it obviously involved the king’s odd little confidant, who walked with a limp and sported an immense black eye. Huw and Branwyn avoided mass and demanded their breakfast brought up to them, and Noble followed it to their private tower room. He spent an hour placating and threatening by turn until Huw let the matter drop, and agreed to come down when the council resumed.
In the hall itself, over breakfast, Owain stayed as far from the queen’s table as he could. Gwirion did likewise, unwilling to decide how nice he ought to be to her without the king around. This made it easy for Owain to approach him—or rather, to corner him, since Gwirion had no desire to speak with him, anticipating how the conversation would go. But Owain trapped him just outside the kitchen as he was peeling a hazel twig to clean his teeth.
“I want to thank you for last night,” Owain began in a chagrined voice.
“You’re welcome,” Gwirion said awkwardly, squelching the impulse to find sexual humor in the line.
He looked shamed. “I’ll always have to wonder what I would have done if you hadn’t—”
“Oh, spare me, please. Spare yourself,” Gwirion pleaded, chewing on the twig. “Forget it happened.”
“I also know what you did later.” Owain pressed on. “My man heard the servants discussing it at mass. They’re all astonished. They’re calling you the patron saint of stable boys.”
“That’s ridiculous, look at me, he ground me to a pulp,” he muttered.
“I just want you to know, for whatever it might be worth, that I think you’re a good Christian,” Owain said, with such unself-conscious sincerity it made Gwirion himself self-conscious.
“Well, that makes everything all right, then,” he answered sarcastically, clapping Owain on the back harder than necessary. He began to walk off but Owain detained him with a gentle hand on his arm.
“And I want to tell you that I envy you.” His eyes had a childlike surety that unnerved Gwirion.
“You want to be the patron saint of stable boys? It’s really not as glamorous as they say, and the wages are dreadful—”
“Not that. Everything else. The liberty.”
Gwirion dropped the twig into the floor rushes, gleefully relishing the absurdity of this assertion. “The liberty? I can’t take a wife or a mistress without permission of the king. I can’t go anywhere without permission of the king. I can’t possess anything, including money, and even when bighearted guests give me a gift on the side, for trifling favors such as saving them from having to flog defenseless women, say—no, Owain, it was a joke,” he said, interrupting himself, as Owain immediately reached down to his belt for his purse.
Owain dropped the purse and looked back up at Gwirion. “Isn’t that freeing? It simplifies everything. You don’t have to worry about practical matters at all.”
“Because I’m a parasite!” Gwirion snapped. “He keeps me completely dependent on him for everything. I live in a state of permanent humiliation. Liberty? You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You have the liberty to do what you did last night,” Owain pointed out.
Gwirion frowned at him and then declared, “I’d trade that in for a chance to earn my own keep.”
“Why don’t you leave, then?” Owain asked.
“And do what?” Gwirion demanded. “He doesn’t want me to go. The only skill I have is the harp and he’d have no trouble finding me if I were out in the world doing that. I have no other skills, I have no way to survive.”
“What if somebody hired you into their household? Anonymously. You can read and write, can’t you? You could be almost any official’s assistant. Those are freemen positions—they pay well. If you moved up to an officer’s status you might even get land.”
“Who would hire me?” Gwirion asked in exasperation, more than ready to end this.
“I would,” Owain said.
A day earlier, Gwirion would have laughed right in his face. But now he couldn’t. He couldn’t respond at all. He just stared.
“I’m new to my patrimony, I’m still establishing my household. Anytime you choose to free yourself of this place, my manor stands ready to welcome you. Not as a parasite, as a man. There is no reason for the king to ever know you’re there. I’m the least of lords in the outlands of Gwerthrynion; there never was much traffic past my father’s door and I don’t think that will change.”
Gwirion’s knees almost gave out. It frightened him how seductive the offer sounded. Scowling, he asked, “That means no privileges, though, right? I can’t attack pederast lords or serve arse-shaped bread loaves or insult stupid visitors, can I?”
Owain considered this. “Well, that sort of thing would likely get back to the king.”
“So I’d have to give up what you call my liberty here.”
Owain nodded. “Yes. In your own interest, yes.”
It seemed a small price to pay for dignity.
“Thank you. I’ll consider it.” He leaned in to Owain. “You’re a good man too,” he allowed, grudgingly.
He worked his way through the hall to see if any children had finished their breakfast yet. That had been an aggravating conversation and as soon as he was free of Owain he knew the idea was preposterous—Gwirion could flee to Jerusalem and Noble would still find him. Anyhow, he would hardly know how to comport himself in the world away from Noble’s side. It was the boy’s ignorant earnestness that had made it seem possible for even a moment.
The queen caught his eye and gestured him over to where she sat alone at the high table. Oh Christ, Gwirion thought, and now there’s this one too. Still, he flushed when her face registered anguish at his bruises.
“I heard how that happened. It was charitable of you.”
“It was just stupid,” he said dismissively. “Now I’ll have to watch my back until Huw leaves. What do you want?”
“What was Owain talking to you about?” she asked, dropping both her voice and her gaze.
“He was singing my praises.” That was all he’d intended to say, but something made him go on. “And he invited me to join his household if I want to escape this insanity.”
She clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at him.
“What?” he asked, impatiently. It wasn’t an outrageous proposal, and this morning she of all people should appreciate the temptation.
For a moment, she stayed looking at him, hiding most of her face behind her hands. She lowered them at last and gave him a sheepish smile. “For the longest time nothing in the world would have pleased me more than your going away,” she said. “Now that there’s actually a chance of it, I realize…” This was hard to say. “I realize you’re probably the best friend I have here, and I’d miss you.”
“Friend? When did we become friends?” Gwirion demanded, alarmed. Isabel straightened, looked embarrassed.
“Allies, at least. If not friends, allies. You’ve shown me I can rely on you and I’m grateful.”
“No, no, we’re not allies,” Gwirion said, holding his outstretched palms toward her and sounding almost panicked. “I don’t do things for your sake. I do things for my sake. Period.”
“You helped my brother—”
“That was to punish Noble for whipping me.”
“Last night—”
“When something sickens me, I do what I can to stop it so I don’t feel sick anymore. That’s all,” Gwirion said firmly. “Don’t take it personally. I’m not anybody’s ally—and certainly not a Mortimer’s.”
FOR days Noble spent sixteen-hour stretches huddled in the council room with smaller groups, interspersed with assemblies in the drafty hall that often became shouting matches. The queen, barred from politics and increasingly burdened with running the household, could not participate; in the evening her intention of querying Noble was checked when she realized how exhausted he was.
She puzzled about the understanding with Huw, but Gwirion’s behavior confused her more. He was cold and snippish toward Noble, refusing to engage in their usual private banter at the supper table and one evening making a very public fuss about performing after the meal. Noble was gently solicitous toward him but the whispered, ferocious private conversations they had, at least once a day, appeared always to consist of Gwirion demanding something and the king, in a variety of sympathetic but condescending moods, refusing him. She was vaguely aware of Huw’s continued evening activities, which she found distasteful but hardly outrageous, and supposed this was the source of contention, although why Gwirion would care about it so much was beyond her. Huw and Gwirion never spoke but glowered at each other across the hall. The entire dynamic confused Isabel, but she had no time to spare for asking subtle questions or even eavesdropping.
And when she did, it was to try to follow what was happening in the war council. Gwilym in their morning meetings would speak of nothing but domestic matters, so her only knowledge of what was going on was what she could pick up on the periphery. The collected barons of Maelienydd were split into at least five different camps at the start of the council and Noble was by turns bullying and reasoning to bring them all into accord. A small majority followed his way of thinking: establishing a larger, permanent guard and possibly earthworks along vulnerable sections of the border, without actively seeking hostilities. The section of Maelienydd nearest to Mortimer’s troops had been briefly taken by the Saxons long ago, and its reconquest by Noble’s ancestors made it hard to defend because it was on the far side of Offa’s Dyke, the enormous ditch that ran the entire eastern length of the country, built many centuries earlier by a Saxon ruler to keep the Welsh in Wales. The dyke had largely accomplished its task—but not in this small section of the middle March, where Maelienydd now spilled east beyond it by some two hours’ ride. The area’s few inhabitants just wanted to be left alone to raid black Welsh cattle or their English counterparts as fancy struck them. This was rich farmland valley, a rarity in Maelienydd, and yet privately Noble would almost have relinquished it—to anyone other than Mortimer. But whoever held it would then be perfectly positioned to launch a campaign of absolute destruction throughout eastern Maelienydd. With Mortimer’s troops gathering on Thomas’s land, the area had to be secured immediately. Noble acknowledged that winter was an ill-conceived time to set out on a campaign, but, he argued, it was a mild winter and Mortimer, in his slightly more temperate homeland, was in any event not going to accommodate their seasonal vagaries. He pressed that he was not advocating a military campaign for midwinter, only a preventive one. Thomas’s release, he argued, should be obtained through diplomacy or not at all.
Others, led by Anarawd the Default Heir, were more traditionally Welsh and bellicose, and saw this crisis as an opportunity to push Mortimer farther east, take more farmland, and raid his thriving villages with impunity. It was, they agreed, a green winter, so supply sources would not be dire; in fact, there would be better winter fodder for the horses lower down, closer to the border. Some went so far as to demand they besiege Wigmore Castle to free her brother, although everybody knew by now that Thomas’s fate really only mattered to the queen. She silently applauded their sentiment but considered the plan a death wish. Another group, she gleaned, even thought that this was the perfect opportunity for Noble to reclaim true self-sovereignty and stop paying yearly homage to the English king, which made her want to laugh. That was definitely a death wish. Others just wanted to fight, with neither rhyme nor reason. Unsurprisingly, Efan, as captain of the teulu forces, was the ringleader of that group.
Still others, whose philosophy the queen was able to overhear in hall one morning after breakfast, gingerly brought up the idea of capitulation. Like Noble, they were tired of bloodshed; unlike him, they thought the best way to end it was to let the Normans claim themselves overlords and then go about their own lives, which would not really change a whit beyond higher taxes. They all detested Mortimer, but he was an excellent administrator over his own properties.
Noble smiled contemptuously at this argument. “The Mortimers have not been systematically killing off my family for the last five generations because they want to help you run your estates more efficiently,” he informed them, in a mockingly gentle cadence, as if their feelings might be wounded by the revelation. He went on, slowly, speaking to them as if they were dull-witted; this same argument came up anew each day without its supporters ever acknowledging his rebuttal. “Mortimer has many relatives and retainers. He wants to keep them loyal, so he has to keep them in his debt, and what they want is land. Not just to live on, but to own, to collect taxes on, to work villeins on. This isn’t the same as when Rhys and I would argue over Rhaeadr—that was about who would receive the land-use fee. This is about who receives the land itself and if we capitulate, it won’t be you. The villeins are the only ones who wouldn’t be massacred or at least left homeless, and frankly I don’t think they care who’s in charge as long as they get a hen and a week off from duties at Christmas.”
The queen took a step into the hall from the kitchen with a deliberate cough, and the entire company of men turned around to stare at her. Noble shot her a furious look that ordered her to go away, but she stayed there, taking in everybody’s gaze, from Owain’s bemused but supportive smile to the many looks of suspicion and resentment. They saw her only as a Mortimer, she knew, and she had done nothing much to make them think otherwise. Of course he could not let her sit in on council; to them it was arguably like having the enemy eavesdropping. She would not have been surprised if they had asked him to divorce her now. “His Majesty my husband is telling you the truth,” she said in a clear, loud voice, putting more than her usual effort into combating her accent. “Trusting Roger for anything will be your doom. He’ll kill every landowner without compunction. You must do everything possible to keep him out of Maelienydd. Even—” Her voice nearly quavered, but she controlled it. “Even if it means removing Thomas from the issue entirely. I would be grateful for his release but he…” She almost couldn’t say the words. “His fate is nothing compared to the fate of our kingdom. In fact,” she pushed on, “although I realize much of what you need cannot be obtained with gold, half the sum of the queen’s coffers will go to whatever effort His Majesty my husband deems most advisable. I challenge all the faithful among you to meet me in that endowment. There is nobody in this room who better knows the mind of Roger Mortimer than I do, not even Maelgwyn ap Cadwallon. I am telling you to trust our king.” She turned abruptly and walked outside, taking deep, calming breaths in the relative quiet of the courtyard’s damp grey morning.
She had not seen Noble’s face change as she spoke. For the rest of the morning he was in better spirits, glancing now and then at the hall door to see if she would return. When dinner was called, he spirited her away to his chamber and made love to her with an affectionate exuberance she could barely remember ever existing between them.
There was another, final faction at council, perhaps the most troublesome, and the queen’s conversion did nothing for it. This group was made up of all the men from the northwest, including Owain and Huw ap Maredudd, who was their spokesman. Llewelyn of Gwynedd did not appear, but these border barons were intrigued by him. He had a great swath of Gwynedd under him now; he would reunite that ancient kingdom soon, and there was no reason to think he would stop there. He was phenomenally popular, his successes public mandate. His undeclared philosophy was that to defy the English invaders, the whole of Wales had to be united—under him. He had recently been wooing barons near his eastern and southern borders to align themselves with him. He had been delicate, almost discreet, with the hope that he could work his way outward through wobbling Powys and convince Noble and the scattered princes near him to acknowledge Llewelyn their overlord. Noble was faced with a bloc of fighters and landowners who wanted to throw their lot in with Llewelyn and let him decide how to use their collective resources. Noble was urged at least to marry one of his near kin to one of Llewelyn’s as soon as possible. The arguments he made against capitulating to Mortimer were no good with this crowd. Unlike Mortimer, Llewelyn would not slaughter the landowners or even (it was posited) depose Noble—he would, at worst, merely demote the king to a petty prince. They said Llewelyn had an army of ten thousand men, mostly peasants but like all native fighters vicious and competent. They wanted that size host fighting with them; more important, they did not want it turned against them. Eventually, this faction argued, some form of central power would be needed to keep Wales out of English hands, some brilliant overseer to replace the remarkable, but lamentably dead, Lord Rhys of Deheubarth. It would almost inevitably be Llewelyn, so for Noble to align Maelienydd with him now, when he was offering and not ordering, was not weakness—it was savvy. Gwilym suggested asking Llewelyn to help them with this struggle, whose outcome would affect his own future, without discussing the fate of Wales as a whole (or any potential nuptials) until the border had been stabilized.
The king couldn’t afford to alienate a single baron in his process of forcing consensus. His resources were too limited and his border, suddenly vulnerable on two fronts, could not afford a weak point. The brief moment of levity from his wife’s declaration had evaporated entirely by noon of the following day.
GWIRION was also busy, but his business was a mystery. More and more often, he turned the care of the children over to Angharad or Generys and disappeared. He would be spotted during the day, usually outside, in brief but intense discourse with one or another of the grooms or squires attached to the visitors. If the king had heard of this he would have interpreted it instinctively, and canceled the informal tourney that was planned to celebrate the end of council. Isabel noticed enough to wonder if she should mention it to him, but her curiosity was piqued. She couldn’t believe Gwirion, for all of his recent anger, would try to undo the king’s coalition efforts. Noble enjoyed any prank Gwirion came up with, and took it as a sign of affection for himself, so surely after this troubling week he would welcome a little harmless mischief.
BY the end of the fifth full day of arguing, a grudging consensus had been reached, and the forty guests swore an oath to stand behind their king and his decision. Noble would send more men east immediately, both to secure the area from Mortimer’s potential raid and to scout out the weakest natural defenses in the border. He would approach Llewelyn, asking him to join him on the endeavor, but he would not consider yielding sovereignty to him as part of any strategy—nor would he offer up a relative for marriage. He would also call reserve troops to go into training should there be urgent need for an expanded army: Every healthy male of fourteen and older would be given the privilege of serving the king in arms.
After a supper that used up most of the remaining fresh meat, when the tables had been struck and the large and now familiar crowd had collected in a huge cluster as close to the hearth as possible, Hywel—and only Hywel—performed. The king had decided the tenor of the day called for serious, heroic, and patriotic recitations, and Gwirion had never bothered to learn any of these. The selection was familiar and inarguably appropriate: It was the epic elegy of the kings of Maelienydd in defense of their realm. The long climax, describing Cadwallon’s murder by her uncle, did not humiliate Isabel as it had last summer. Now it upset her, deeply, and she felt a hopeless despair for the future of her two lands. “The hero has been slaughtered,” droned the bard, “he who was so brilliant to behold.” She had thought Roger sent her to Maelienydd so that a Mortimer heir might lawfully ascend to the throne within a generation, but she realized now that that was a diversion on his part, and romantic folly for her to have believed it. Roger Mortimer wanted Maelienydd for himself and he wanted it immediately.
She listened more carefully to the words this time, curious for a reference to Gwirion’s supposed heroism. But there was nothing, only a passing comment that the brave and valiant prince had had a boon companion with him when he miraculously escaped Mortimer’s assault. For a moment she was tempted to discount what Enid had said last spring, what the king himself had told her in September. But she realized that the duty of all bards was to elevate the king alone. It would not read well in the chronicles of history to know the kingdom owed its survival to a parasite.
To her side, Noble’s face was wet with tears. More surprisingly, Gwirion—who had not spoken to the king for days—was on the floor beside the throne, away from her, sobbing into the skirt of Noble’s long red tunic. Noble’s hand brushed against Gwirion’s dark hair in a vague, unconscious gesture of comfort. She suddenly understood that they were listening to a narrative whose details—or lack thereof—they themselves must have provided. She looked away, feeling intrusive.
But later in the evening, as the king was about to exit the hall, the queen saw the two men in confusing, bitter argument again. It ended with the king ordering Efan to keep Gwirion in custody until the castle had retired for the night. She tried questioning the penteulu, but the burly young man clearly knew nothing and lacked all curiosity.
THE next morning was sunny, and despite the cold the entire castle and much of the village turned out to watch the tournament. The tourney field lay within the village walls, between the steep base of the castle mound and the lazy River Aron. It was small, the only level field for miles around and absolutely flat. There was a wooden terrace built out from the rampart below Noble’s tower and Isabel had taken her accustomed place there; the wives and children of the fighters joined her bundled in mantles, cloaks, and blankets. The king, having finished an attractive but gratuitous romp around the field on his spotted Spanish charger (just to remind his people how magnificent a leader they had), arrived on the terrace, kissed his wife’s hand, then stood up to declare the start of the tournament.
Most of the landowners and fighters were taking part in the mock battle, which would be fought with dulled lances and blunt wooden swords. The Welsh did not usually fight the way these men were about to. Welshmen were expert archers and spearmen and they eschewed their many chances for open battle to move, frequently on foot and without armor, through the wooded hills to surprise enemies who were playing by more conventional battle rules—and who, after more than a century, never seemed to learn better. That was how their fathers and grandfathers had defeated Henry of England more than a generation earlier. But it was part of any gentleman soldier’s training to learn the Norman style of warfare, which was far more entertaining to watch than a spearing match.
At Noble’s gesture, grooms held the horses’ heads and the participants prepared to mount. He raised his hand so that he could signal the commencement as soon as their weight hit their saddles—but for many of them their weight never did.
It was a bizarre scene, three dozen well-bred, well-trained chargers bucking and rearing as they tried to unseat their own masters. More than half of the riders went down hard before the other half realized it was a universal problem and backed away from their mounts.
Twenty dizzy warriors stumbled about wondering what had happened to them while their grooms scrambled to reclaim the horses, most of whom shuddered indignantly, snorted, and trotted briskly away to the edges of the field. Nobody offered a solution and finally Cadwgan the marshal angrily ordered the saddle be removed from his own mare. He tore off the saddle pad, removed his gloves, and began to work his fingers around it. A moment later, he stopped, examined something he had found, and ripped it out of the blanket. He held it up for everyone to see.
A small iron spur had been embedded deeply in the blanket. The press of the saddle itself, even when firmly cinched, had caused the mare no discomfort, but the moment her rider’s full weight bore down on the stirrup, the metal barbs on the spur had bitten into her back. All of the horses were reclaimed and unsaddled, and within moments every one was found to have at least one such burr in their saddle blankets. Anarawd’s and Huw’s had seven each. The villagers on the ground, and the castle staff high above on the wall walk, began to laugh, knowing at once who was behind it. The riders themselves were furious and began shouting at each other.
On the terrace, the amused children demanded of their nurses what had happened, as Noble shook his head and groaned softly to himself. “Good morning, Your Majesties,” said a voice behind them. Everyone turned to see Gwirion, his eye still discolored and puffy from Huw’s attack, wandering through the small crowd, tousling the heads of the children within reach as they called out to him affectionately. He had a grey mantle wrapped around his slender shoulders, and he settled kneeling on the floor between king and queen without bothering to look down at the tourney. He was still annoyed at Noble and ignored him. “I overslept. Have I missed anything?” he asked the queen.
Noble clasped his hands, the two index fingers steeplelike pressed against each other, and hid his mouth behind them. The gesture usually implied suppressed amusement, but there was no amusement now. “You whoreson,” he said quietly, staring down at the field. “How did you manage that?”
Gwirion peered over the edge of the railing to see what was happening. Several fistfights were about to break out among the fighters. “Oh, that was easy. The blacksmith’s an obsessively devoted Christian.”
“And?” Noble prompted crossly when that seemed to be the end of Gwirion’s explanation.
“And you’ll be needing a new silver cross in the chapel.”
“You didn’t!” the queen gasped, as Noble made a disgusted sound. “Gwirion, you must return that, you can’t steal from the house of God.”
“Oh, that’s all right, I gave myself license to do it as long as I put it to good use, which I think this was.”
“It’s good use to infuriate the men I rely on to keep the kingdom whole?” Noble demanded, watching the collective reaction of the fighters grow uglier. “This is going to alienate—”
“I have it in hand,” Gwirion said. He rose gracefully and waved his arms wide in a greeting to the crowd. There was a roar of approval from the commoners and a dawning bellow of indignation from the lords. The squires and grooms were conspicuously silent. “You seem to be having some difficulties down there,” he chirped.
Among the angry cries, Lord Huw’s voice boomed, “What’s the excuse now, you little ass? This isn’t the work of somebody who’s out of his head, it’s the work of somebody with too much idle time on his hands!”
Anarawd’s voice, distinct and slightly nasal, added more loudly and threateningly, “What’s the king’s excuse? He binds us to an oath and then makes fools of us! Is this a man who deserves our obedience?” The rest of his accusation was drowned out in furious, loud agreement from the others.
Noble, his face like Gwirion’s looking out over the crowd, leaned in close to him and whispered threateningly, “If he foments rebellion from this, I’m hanging you for treason.”
Gwirion ignored the comment and held his hands up for silence, which took a moment to achieve. “Do you believe this to have been a prank? This wasn’t a prank! This was a lesson! How do you think I did it—all by myself? Of course not. I had the help of everybody’s grooms and squires. Everybody’s. Wait!” he called sharply as the men, now furious at their own underlings, looked for those it was within their power to punish. “Wait! Hear me out! I asked no one to plot against his own master. I asked them all who their masters had any minor grudge with, and then convinced them they would be acting in their lord’s interest to perform a small act of mischief against that person—one single, apparently harmless action. Your lads all acted in service to you. That’s their duty, don’t punish them for it. The lesson here, however, is that they were acting in service only to you. The spirit of this past week, all your striving for cohesiveness and unity—you haven’t bothered to share that need with them. To communicate it to your people. Have you? And this is the result. Consider it. And now, if you don’t mind, I have other tykes to enlighten—”
The children cheered behind him, thrilled that their favorite nurse had turned out to be the perpetrator of the entertainment, but the men were not going to let him go.
“You’re not getting away with this!” Huw called out. “You shamed us, now you come down here and be shamed yourself!” This got everybody frantically excited. Gwirion tried to quiet them but they were too exercised.
Suddenly Noble leapt up and shoved him aside, so roughly that he stumbled into the queen. Isabel, wincing at the enormity of trouble Gwirion had just brought upon himself, reflexively held out a hand to steady him. The king held up his hands and the lords silenced themselves at once. There was a pause. “Tell me what he’s done wrong, and I will punish him accordingly,” His Majesty offered.
“He’s made fools of us!” Huw declared in outrage from below.
“Has he?” Noble seemed to muse. “I would say rather that he’s demonstrated something we should have understood ourselves. This will prevent us from making fools of ourselves again, when the stakes are higher. If anything, we owe him a debt of gratitude.”
“Gratitude?” half the lords cried in a shared, incredulous voice.
But the king’s glare was enough to silence them again. “I am your king,” he reminded them, slowly. “And I’m telling you we are grateful for the lesson we’ve just learned. Who defies me?” There were unhappy looks and noises exchanged, but nobody spoke another word. Noble smiled down at them with all apparent calm. “Then we are all in accord, and Gwirion shall have the best cut of lamb tonight at supper for his thoughtful demonstration.”
Without another word, he turned his back to the field and began to walk off the terrace, gesturing for his startled wife to follow him. He grabbed Gwirion’s wrist on the way and pulled him brusquely along beside him. They stopped at the back edge of the platform and he pivoted Gwirion to look straight at him. Knowing there were many eyes upon them, he seemed to smile at his friend as he informed him between clenched jaws, “I should have killed you right in front of all of them.” Then he released Gwirion’s wrist and began to climb the steep wooden steps up to the base of his tower.
“That was very dangerous, Gwirion,” Isabel whispered, more amazed than chastening.
“Of course it was dangerous,” Gwirion retorted, watching Noble ascend. Despite his cocky tone, he fidgeted a little. “There’d have been no purpose to it otherwise.”
“You would really risk your life just to show the barons up?”
Gwirion made a face and shook his head, his eyes still raised, following the king. “I didn’t risk my life. He should have killed me, but he never would have.”
“How can you be so confident of that?”
Gwirion gave her an arch look. “Apparently, Your Majesty, it seems that I’m a fool.” He mounted the stairs, following the king.