ARMS BOUND, Gwirion was led away well wrapped against the chill. Cynan put him on a horse, which genuinely pleased him since he was so used to his pony. Isabel had slipped him her precious rosary after taking off the relic-bearing crucifix, so that he would have something to barter for food or shelter until he got his bearings. He did not tell her what he would probably barter it for instead: He’d determined to exorcise her from his mind by finding a whore as soon as he was free.
IT was over before the sun rose, and an hour after dawn Noble was reclining on a brychan, hands clasped behind his head, his legs stretched out before him and crossed at the ankle. He grinned at his captive, who was tied standing stiffly under heavy guard. The smells of a belated breakfast wafted past. Noble had chosen to take the audience this way partly to hide how bone tired he was and partly to insult Roger Mortimer with extreme informality.
“Might we interest you in a traditional Welsh breakfast?”
“Richard will raise a stink about this,” Mortimer said.
“About feeding you a Welsh breakfast?” Noble answered. “I didn’t know he was so particular about his lords’ diets. Very well, then, how do you Saxons break your fast?” He punched the word, knowing it was rude. He was jubilant.
“I meant my capture,” Mortimer said disdainfully.
Noble shook his head. “Let’s not waste our time with feeble posturing, Uncle Roger. Richard won’t even hear about this for weeks, maybe months, and he’ll just think you were stupid for provoking me. Which you were. Of course, if you would like to be your niece’s guest at Cymaron until Richard can be bothered to raise your ransom, you’re welcome, but I suspect you’d be more comfortable in your own home, so let’s settle this now.” Through all the glibness, he had one eye on Llewelyn, studying him. The younger prince either didn’t notice the scrutiny or didn’t care, and in any case he gave nothing away. He was the model of a young commander whose star was rising: cocky but deserving it, respectful and obedient to Noble’s seniority. “I would like to get home to your niece myself,” Noble said in a light tone, and absolutely nothing was revealed in Llewelyn’s face.
THE castle was physically undamaged, but the stores were plundered and the inhabitants moved about like ghosts. The serving women who had been forced to entertain the invaders clung together in the kitchen, where Marged warmed milk to soothe their nerves. The queen called the castle residents together in the hall, to warn them that there were still armed men outside the village walls who would not let anybody leave, for any reason, and she begged them not to try. The entire assembly spontaneously interrupted her with applause for her aplomb and poise in the face of crisis. She blushed and patiently acknowledged their admiration, then pressed on to assure them that Gwirion would alert the king once he escaped, which evoked another outburst of approval. She did not reveal that Gwirion was not coming back, although she meant to tell Marged that night.
But night fell and she did not tell Marged because she didn’t want to concede that it was the truth. As a comforting gesture, she requested the most indulgent supper the kitchen could muster, trusting that Cynan would be called to account to replenish their stores before the end of winter. But there was little fresh meat and no means to get any—the butcher, huntsman, and falconer were all with Noble.
For her brush with danger, the queen was instantly granted the status of an adored young saint; everybody wanted to be near her, to assist her, to receive attention from her. She enjoyed it but she was unused to it, and it seemed ironic that after months of trying so hard to win these people’s hearts, she was successful only after being locked up in a room doing nothing for two days but entertaining adulterous thoughts.
Almost everyone offered to perform during and after the meal; the honor of playing first was awarded to an awkward young wheel-wright who had been left behind as part of the guard. He sang and played the pipe, and Angharad, the oldest of the sewing bevy, performed next on the harp. The two of them, and the motley assortment of musicality that followed, all did the best they could to entertain, but the collective effect on Isabel was abysmal. In tribute to Gwirion, Angharad attempted “Rhiannon’s Tears.” Gwirion had played it half a dozen times in their two days of confinement. Once, to show off, he had played it—he claimed—backward. Angharad butchered it compared to Gwirion’s finesse, but even if it had been an excellent rendition it would have left Isabel heart heavy. She remembered that his harp was still in the audience chamber, and asked that it be wrapped in its felt sheath and returned to the chest near the kitchen screen. She wondered when it would ever be sounded again. Without her rosary to worry, she began to fidget with the crucifix until she nearly snapped it in half. She put it in her purse, out of reach, and fretted with the edge of her veil instead.
It did not seem fair to her, or even sensible, how tormented she was now. Being in his presence yesterday had suddenly been so pleasant, had made her feel light and cheerful, giddy even—and now his absence was a wall she could not stop walking into. Noble did not have nearly such a grip on her imagination. His absence never preoccupied her even though her well-being was more dependent on his safe return. And he was her husband, her bedmate. Why did thoughts of Gwirion, who had refused to undress her, make her feel abandoned? For the love of the saints, there was nothing to miss! She missed the conversation, yes, but how could anyone yearn more for one evening’s conversation than for nine months of domestic and connubial intimacy? If she felt such longing for Noble, or at least his body, she could have excused herself. But she didn’t. She longed only for something she had never even known.
Isabel slept that night in Noble’s bed, unable to bear the proximity of her women. Everyone seemed pale and dull compared to the man she had nearly forced herself on the night before. She lay beside the space where her husband usually slept, imagining Gwirion there instead, and almost swooned in a hazy fantasy of making love to him.
She awoke with an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach.
IT was just after dawn when Gwirion’s message reached the king. Noble was deep in slumber, a rare thing for him in any circumstance. He’d been up most of the night with Llewelyn, trying to break Mortimer’s will without breaking his body—an act of charity Noble did not really think the Norman was entitled to. But he had challenged convention far enough already in this venture and he knew that to treat Mortimer as he deserved was risking censure from the English king, the pope, or both.
Ithel was sleeping on the floor of the tent, the king’s mysterious new mascot whom nobody in camp was allowed to approach. He awoke first and awkwardly tugged at the king’s blanket until Noble opened his eyes—and then he was instantly awake. “What?” he demanded, and sat erect. At the tent flap stood Gwallter with a young runner wearing livery and breathing hard, his short hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. Ithel had wordlessly taken a grubby, unsealed parchment from him and offered it to His Majesty.
Noble recognized the writing and sent Gwallter and the boy away. He unrolled the scroll and Ithel watched him as he read. Noble looked up, straight at him.
“Well, lad,” he said, “You were exactly on the mark.” And then to himself, softly, “Christ.” He had not allowed it to be real until he saw it written in Gwirion’s familiar, spidery script.
“Will you send someone back now?” Ithel asked for the dozenth time. “You don’t need the soldiers anymore.”
“It’s over,” Noble said vaguely. “There was a hostage attempt and Gwirion foiled it.” He tossed the parchment to the ground.
“Good!” Ithel declared. “But you had better send some troops back to be safe.” Noble lay back on the brychan, eyeing the boy. Clearly he had no idea how presumptuous and disrespectful he was being, and Noble lacked both the energy and the inclination to educate him. If he was following in Gwirion’s footsteps, there was little hope for improvement anyway.
“No,” he answered. “And you will continue to keep your mouth shut.”
The boy looked distressed. “Sire? Why?”
“We’ll finish the formalities with Mortimer this morning and then we’re starting for home after dinner. I’m keeping my army intact until I have a signed and sworn concession from the enemy I just humiliated. For all we know, deBraose or one of Mortimer’s other neighbors is sending twenty thousand men to take us down. We are not necessarily through here, Ithel, but the situation at Cymaron is resolved.”
THAT morning castle life was almost returned to normal. Queen and judge sat in hall again, and met with the villagers and other petitioners to hear their disputes. Many of them chattered excitedly about Gwirion as if he were some heroic figure of legend, happily anticipating his triumphant return. His selfless act of bravery and cunning being undertaken for her sake only added to her new popularity, and she was dizzy with compliments and adoring glances by the end of the day. She received the subjects who had come in from the countryside and been held hostage within the gates by Cynan’s outside troops, and invited those who could not find lodging within the village to come back to the hall for the night.
She had hoped there would be more talented entertainers in their ranks. There weren’t. But a few well-meaning souls who were praised within their own undemanding hamlets wanted to impress Her Most Esteemed Majesty, and, of course, most of them played some painful variant of “Rhiannon’s Tears.” She wanted to scream.
She went to Noble’s bed again the second night determined not to think about Gwirion, and failed at once. He must have escaped by now. She wondered how long it would take his message to reach Noble, worried that the baron would come back for her once Gwirion escaped him. Anxiously she lit a candle, then a wall sconce, to search for a map of the region, but of course there were no maps in the bedchamber. Defeated, fretting, she darkened the room again and crawled back under the blankets, trying hard not to imagine what it would be like to have Gwirion beside her.
She drifted to sleep and dreamt that he was lying on top of her, but he was much bigger, bigger than Noble, he had grown so huge that he was suffocating her and she couldn’t breathe. In a panic, she forced herself to wake up, but the suffocation didn’t lessen and she realized with a painful twist of fear that it was real.
A gloved hand was clamped hard over her mouth and nose. She tried to scream, but the hand had an airtight seal. Somebody yanked her head up roughly and held her in a viselike grip against his cold body. A knife poked into her neck right behind her jawbone.
“Don’t move,” a deep voice whispered in the darkness. It was a northern accent like the baron’s and she knew with dread what was happening. His breath smelled of cheap ale, and the stubble on his cheek raked her ear. “If I remove my hand and you scream, I’ll send this dagger right through your throat. Do you understand? Nod.” She nodded against his hand. The hand released.
“What do you want?” she demanded in a harsh whisper, praying she sounded more angry than frightened.
“Just you, Your Majesty.” The knife poked a little. “Are you going to cause any trouble?”
“Who are you?” she asked, wishing she hadn’t doused the torch. Now she realized how foolish it was to have lit it—that’s how the man must have located her.
“An ally,” said the voice, suddenly sounding familiar. The knife fell away, the grip relaxed, and she barely stifled a scream of pleasure when she saw Gwirion’s profile silhouetted against the window.
“You came back!”
He pulled the glove off, lit a candle, and placed it beside the bed, avoiding her glance. “I’m not staying,” he said.
“Then why did you come at all?”
He couldn’t tell her the crude truth of it: That hours after he had escaped he had, in fact, found himself on a prostitute’s pallet, unable to summon even lust. The whore had been genial and understanding, especially since she had already been paid. She told him that if a lass had that kind of hold on him, there was only one cure: He had to possess her. Whatever feverish and idealized image he had of being with her would make the real experience pale in comparison, and then, disillusioned, he would be free. This woman was not a romantic.
“I came to let you know it went off smoothly. And…to see you one more time,” he said awkwardly, feeling like a cretin. “If you want that. Or I can just go,” he added hurriedly.
Anticipation tickled her from her throat down to her thighs and for a moment she could hardly breathe. “Is seeing all you’re capable of?” she whispered.
“I’m not going to become your lover,” he said, more aggressively than he meant to. “This is one night. And then I’m gone for good.”
“Then we must do things just right, so we may feast on the memories for years.” If she was going to long for him, she at least had a right to know what she would be longing for. She was pleased with this rationale, believing herself the first lover in the history of forbidden desire to think of it. She stroked the stubble on his cheek with the back of her finger. “But first tell me what happened.”
He jerked her hand away from his face, shaken by how intensely the simple gesture aroused him. He took a breath, then grimaced apologetically and released her. “It was simple,” he began, willing himself to focus on speech. “We got just past the Severn, and they made camp as soon as the horses recovered from the fording. I got away soon after sunset and propped up my blankets to look like I was sleeping. The nights are so long now, I had ten hours’ lead at least, I think. And I’d dropped a few hints during the day about having family in northeastern Powys, so I think they’ll have wasted today heading in exactly the wrong direction. I went back over the Severn to Newtown, and sent the mayor’s courier to the border to warn Noble.” It was this mayor, thrilled at being invited into the annals of history, who had taken him to the village’s one hostel and treated him to its one whore, who was his niece. That reminded Gwirion, wryly, of Isabel’s rosary, which he took from around his neck now and draped over her hands. She set it beside the bed. “The fates seem to be with us—there’s a good moon and it was clear, and there’s a manned relay course from Newtown to the king’s camp. The message is certainly at the border by now. If Noble can send somebody, you should have protection by tomorrow night at the latest. I’ve been hearing conflicting things about how things are faring there, so I don’t trust any of it.”
Noble’s fool, the man she knew as her tormentor, was not capable of what Gwirion had just done. She wondered, if she could persuade him to stay, whether he would regress to the rascally waywardness that Noble so enjoyed. Perhaps he was afraid of that too.
“Thank you” was all she said. Then she took one of his hands in hers and drew him onto the bed.
He resisted. It was the personal betrayal, not the technicality of adultery, that troubled him. The king had betrayed his trust in many ways—pretending to kill me, for example—but in the end Noble’s actions had been, however strangely, a celebration of their friendship, not an affront to it.
She slowly peeled away the layers of blankets until she sat nude beside him. This alone could have kept him spellbound for the night. Her skin was almost translucent. “My God, you’re beautiful,” he managed to say aloud, remembering she could not hear the thoughts that sounded so deafening to him. For nine months now, Noble had had this in his bed and he had never once spoken of it with appreciation.
She reached for the tongue of his belt. She knew how to undress a man, it was one thing her husband had taught her early on. Gwirion was stupefied; rarely had a woman so much as lifted the hem of his tunic. Even when Enid seduced him he was almost fully clothed and she had simply pulled up her skirt.
Her hands were small and soft, wonderfully warming on his chilled skin, but he became self-conscious when she tried to remove his drawers. “What’s wrong?” she asked, smiling up at him. He couldn’t manage to say anything coherent. “Are you afraid I’ll be disappointed?”
“Yes,” he said. It should have been obvious. He went on, stammering: “I’m not the lover he is. I’m not as gifted, in any sense.” He pushed her hands away.
She put them back. “I’m not worried about that,” she whispered, and nudged his hands aside again.
When they were both undressed there was a long, indecisive moment. They stared at each other, fascinated and desirous but also stunned that they found themselves here, when a week ago they had been grudgingly civil at best. “Please,” Isabel said at last. “I’ve dragged you this far. You must take the next step or I’ll feel as if I’m forcing you.”
This was the king’s bed, and Noble’s blue eyes, in his mind, stared down at them unblinking from the canopy. She had given herself to a man many times here but it had always been her husband. He didn’t know if Noble’s image was plaguing him to terrorize him, shame him, or just intimidate him, but he tried to push it away as he laid her on the mattress and hovered over her. He was frightened of the first moment, the commencement of true sin and irredeemable betrayal. Beyond that, when it was too late to turn back, there would be a sickly kind of freedom and relief. But until then the possibility of redemption gave guilt and fear their own seductive powers—
“You’re thinking too much,” she whispered. “Stay here.”
He gave her an apologetic smile, bent over to kiss her cheek, and then he lost himself in her.
They were tentative at first. But their lean bodies fit together beautifully, moved together with one rhythm, intertwined so naturally they could almost forget they were not one. This was the mystery she had missed on her wedding night, the sense of being let into some secret. He lacked Noble’s suave assurance but his touch was a hundred times more electric. She didn’t know where her Christian Lord fit into it, but she knew this was a mingling that no benevolent God could have condemned. This could not be an evil thing.
She was not indulging him, as he now realized suddenly that most other women had always done. There was some fathomless craving beyond the animal need for sex and it frightened him to feel it. It frightened him much more to sense she felt it too.
Hours later, they lay beside each other on the bed, her face buried in his shoulder, arms around each other. “I want more of that,” she whispered. “More and more and more.” She felt him tense.
“We can’t. Only tonight. I have to get out before it’s light and I can’t come back.” He kissed the top of her head, where her tangled hair made a zigzag part across her scalp. That silky hair that had so enchanted him for the first time just a few days ago. It seemed like another era. It was another era. “Only tonight,” he repeated, kissing her. “It’s better this way,” he insisted quietly when she frowned. “It’s not complicated. We’ll have unsullied memories of each other, and the part of each of us that belongs to him will never have to—” He stopped talking abruptly, realizing that she wasn’t listening, and realizing why.
She was running her fingers over a ridge of skin near his spine, an ancient wound from the day she was born. “What’s that?” she asked, and lifted herself up to peer over his torso in the candlelight. She gasped. “Gwirion! Your back!”
She was staring at the faded scars from the lashing he’d received on Halloween. “That’s from my little misadventure with the dogs,” he said dismissively, but she shook her head.
“No, I see those, but there’s something else here,” she insisted, and reached toward the patch of slick, taut scar tissue. “This is much older—”
“I fell off a horse when I was nine,” he said quickly. “Let me dress now.”
They stood before the fireplace. She slipped into a chemise and then Noble’s long wool robe for warmth, and helped him back on with his clothes so coquettishly that by the time he was ready to go, their hands were all over each other again. “Please stay,” she whispered into his neck and ran her hands down his front. “Just once more. Quickly, we’ll stay dressed—”
“Do you want me to get caught?” he asked backing away, his voice rising in alarm. “If there’s light enough to see someone climbing over the wall, those men will shoot to kill.”
She threw her arms around him one final time, hating to let go, and he held her tightly, her face nuzzling his collarbone, her knees bending slightly to press against his legs. They stayed in this final clench, lost in each other’s presence, too distracted to hear the dim noises rising from the courtyard on the other side of the tower, or even, a moment later, slippered feet racing up the wooden steps outside and low voices greeting each other on the other side of the door.
The king’s doorkeeper Gethin rapped hard, and—against all custom or decorum—entered immediately, torch in hand. “Milady!” he cried, heading automatically for the bed before looking toward the now-dim fire and feeble candlelight. In that moment of delay they dropped their embrace and leapt apart, but Gwirion had no chance to hide.
Gethin blinked in surprise to see him and forgot to bow to Her Majesty. “How did you get in here? I’ve been on guard since the queen went to bed.”
“Scaled the wall,” Gwirion said in a high voice, trying to sound casual. “I’ve just terrified Her Majesty.” Her Majesty was too flustered to act terrified, so he babbled on. “Saw a light in the window and assumed the king was back somehow—”
“He is!” the doorkeeper nearly bellowed, grinning. “They saw him from the beacon tower and he’ll be here in ten minutes or less, that’s why Gwilym requested Her Majesty to come to hall. Oh, Gwirion lad, but he’ll be glad you’re home safe. You must both come down to greet him.”
She felt him sway beside her and she took his arm to support him. “Gwirion is feeling poorly,” she said. “He’s had a rough journey out and back, and he’s chilled. I am excusing him from seeing the king tonight.”
“Oh, Your Majesty, I don’t know about that. The king would want to see him if he were at death’s door. Come on, lad, I’ll take you down to the kitchen and see what Marged can do for you. We’ll see you when you’re ready, milady.”
Before either of them could object, the burly fellow had scooped Gwirion up under one arm and was escorting him out of the room, radiating cheer. Gwirion managed to turn his head and give her a traumatized look of resignation before he disappeared down the steps. Alone, she leaned against the mantel, uncertain if she wanted to laugh or weep.
THE queen’s chandler hurriedly lit rushes around the hall.
Outside in the bailey, the castle population had gathered in the cold to shake off sleep and greet their sovereign. Noble reined in his sweat-drenched mount, Efan and three soldiers riding up behind him looking agitated and exhausted. Everyone had tried to talk His Majesty out of doing this. The sky was clear and the moon bright enough to travel by, he’d argued. On foot, perhaps, and in familiar territory, Cadwgan had angrily admonished him, begging him not to run a tired horse through unfamiliar hills at night. The roads from Wigmore to Cymaron, Noble had rebutted impatiently, were well worn from the days of the Mortimer occupation, and traversing nothing but treeless hills, they could be trusted in dim light. Since he had no chance of changing horses along the way he would obviously not spend his mount foolishly, but he had delayed enough already and did not want to wait until morning to be gone. He’d wanted to go alone, arguing that even a single guard would slow him down, but Efan refused to let him leave the camp without an escort.
He had been supping with Llewelyn and their officers near Knighton as the armies traveled home, preparing to split off to go to their respective kingdoms the following morning and celebrating their last night of war rations by drinking as much as possible. They were cheering the settlement they’d forced on Mortimer, crowing triumphantly over Thomas’s release and the terms, which were all to Mortimer’s loss. Just as King Richard’s benign neglect gave the Marcher baron freedom to run wild with ambition, it gave him little to fall back upon for help in a defeat. Lord Maelgwyn ap Cadwallon, King of Maelienydd, had decided all the terms.
Throughout that final supper, he’d waited. He waited as the ceremonious toasts acknowledged him the supreme and successful commander. He waited as the camp bards and the bards from Gwynedd paid him elaborate praise. He waited, barely wetting his lips, smiling and laughing with the officers who were all guzzling foul brew on the grounds that the less there was to carry, the faster they could get home. He waited until he knew everyone’s attentions were truly turned away from war and toward their own homes, until Llewelyn’s value as his comrade-in-arms was of substance only to the bards.
Then he had his dagger at Llewelyn’s throat too fast for even the keenest guards to stop him, and cleared the tent of everybody else, declaring that only one of them would leave the tent alive if blade met blade. However savvier a politician and tactician the Prince of Gwynedd was, Noble was a better swordsman—at least when he was cold sober and Llewelyn wasn’t—and Llewelyn knew that. He chose at once to admit his mischief, and Noble, not condescending to speak further with him, called in Father Idnerth to negotiate a penalty. Ten minutes later the king was on horseback racing toward Castell Cymaron.
He wondered as he rode why he suddenly felt emotional. Gwirion had obviously escaped safely and might even be back at the castle before him. The queen was safe. Nobody was hurt. The danger was over. There was no need for him to come flying home belatedly this way; he had known something was amiss for two days and nights and he’d done nothing about it, and all had come out fine. Still his breath caught, thinking what it must have been like for them, his two dependents so completely unprepared. It warmed him that Gwirion had put himself in harm’s way for his wife. It was her face that hovered in his mind’s eye now, and a rare tenderness threatened to weaken his limbs. He was ashamed and furious that a fellow Welshman had betrayed her trust, and he wanted to wrap reassuring arms around her and promise her she would be safe now. And he would have a chance to do that before sunup.
His spirits were high as he flung the reins to a waiting groom and tried to dismount. But the crowd—villagers, servants, the scrawny men who’d stayed behind to guard the castle, and the petitioners who’d been locked inside the village walls—swarmed around his horse and lifted him onto their shoulders, cheering, crowing with delight at his safe return and the presumed victory it presaged. He was taken aback by the excitement but then, laughing, let them carry him. A great wobbling carpet of heads and hands, they rushed up the steps to the great hall and cheered again when they saw his wife waiting to receive him.
She was across the room, standing alone by the low embers of the fire, in a chemise and surcoat, her hair braided hurriedly and hanging limply down her back. She was startled by the joyful onslaught, but seeing who it carried, knelt down respectfully at once. The crowd, with the awkward grace of a collective entity, brought king to queen and slid him gently to his feet to stand beside her, before retreating to where they could all gawk and listen without crowding the couple. “Milady,” Noble said, taking her hands and pulling her up. “I praise every god in creation for your safety.” He pecked her formally on each cheek and then, so relieved to feel her small frame in his grasp, kissed her passionately on the lips for a moment, not noticing her tremulous response. There was a hearty caw of approval from around the room. Noble glanced at the congregation as if seeing them for the first time, then turned back to his wife, stroking her face with roughened hands smelling of leather and horse sweat.
“Are you well?”
“Yes, milord,” she managed to say. “Just a bit overwhelmed by all the excitement.”
“Things will be in order now,” he assured her, and murmured quietly, a private message for the only one who really cared, “Your brother is safely back in his home.” A small sob of gratitude escaped her and she hugged him. He loved the feel of her slender arms clinging to him, and stroked her hair, resting his chin on the top of her head until she had collected herself. Then he took her hand, turned to the crowd surrounding them, and announced, “The fighting is over. We are victorious and all our terms are met.” They cheered again, ecstatically; they had no idea what the terms were, but “victorious” sounded promising. “And I’ve had it out with the upstart prince who subjected you all to his cousin’s rude visit. We’ll have no more problems from that border either.” This had more immediate meaning for them, so the cheering was ecstatic and prolonged.
Noble was about to dismiss them all to return to bed, when he saw a small figure near the kitchen, nearly hidden behind Gethin’s bulk and drinking deeply from a cup. The king’s face lit up. “Gwirion!” he cried out, and instantly the crowd turned its collective exuberance in the same direction. The doorkeeper, swept up in the spirit of the moment, jovially grabbed the startled Gwirion under the arms and lifted his limp form high in the air, presenting him to all like a sacred relic.
Noble broke through the crowd to reach him. Gethin lowered him into the king’s strong embrace and he hung inert in Noble’s arms. “It’s a master politician we have here—I should make you my heir! Our little hero, and come home already!” The castle populace cheered with approval around him and he looked so joyful it made Gwirion want to kill himself. He was trapped now. Antidotal to the alarming novelty of the last few days, Noble’s familiarity calmed something in Gwirion; the seductive aroma of charisma was already weaving its way around his rib cage. His eyes met Isabel’s briefly over the crowd. She knew he wasn’t leaving now. And she turned away, understanding it was for the king, not herself, that he was staying.
The king dismissed the collected huddle with a gesture and turned his full attention to his friend. “How long have you been back?” he asked quietly, still smiling, as the crowd dispersed.
“Just a few minutes, sire, I’m surprised we didn’t come across each other outside the gates. I’ve been on foot and I’m chilled through, so—”
“Come up for a bit to my room. Play for me,” he said, “and for the queen. What you did was tremendous, Gwirion, for the kingdom and for me, but also for her. This is the beginning of a great friendship for the three of us, I hope.”
Gwirion decided then that the only way out of the situation was sudden death. “Noble,” he said miserably, in a quiet voice although people had already wandered out of earshot. “I’ve been with your wife.”
“Yes, I know, shut up in—”
“I mean carnally,” Gwirion said with a wince.
The king chuckled. “Indeed? You always were a fellow of extremes. Come on up, just a tune or two—”
“I’m serious,” Gwirion said in his most humorless voice. “Christ, Noble, send me away.”
He only laughed harder. “I hope this is a quick jest, Gwirion, it’s too late to get into something complicated.”
“And what is the jest?” demanded Isabel in a too bright voice, appearing suddenly at Noble’s elbow. The bottom of Gwirion’s stomach fell out.
Noble merely smiled. “I don’t think it’s for a lady’s ears. Finish it tomorrow, won’t you, Gwirion? It’s an excellent deadpan.” He put a hand on each of their shoulders, looking between them with satisfaction. “I’m so pleased,” he said. He turned to his wife. “Do you know how extraordinary it is for Gwirion to have done that?” And back to his friend, beaming: “Truly. You amaze me. You of all people.”
“It’s not as if he despised me,” the queen protested, slightly unnerved by Noble’s wonderment.
The king shook his head. “It has nothing to do with you. I’m amazed that Gwirion left the castle at all. Gwirion doesn’t take to the open road, do you, my friend?” He saw the confused look she shot Gwirion, who ignored it. Noble slid his arm around her shoulders, pulled her to him, and kissed her cheekbone near her ear. “Come to bed, and I’ll explain it.”
“Please don’t, sire,” Gwirion said in a tense voice.
“Then come up with us, distract me from telling tales with a tune on the harp.” He kissed her cheek again, more ardently, and murmured, “Would you like a serenade for our reunion?” Gwirion, who heard the question plainly, shut his eyes, wishing he could disappear.
Isabel managed to be equal to it. She leaned against her husband, smiling up at him. “I thought privacy might be in order.” Lowering her voice suggestively, she added, “I earned castellan privileges from you before you left. Do you wish to earn them back?”
He nearly did a double take. “I don’t need to earn them, they’re mine to take—but is my own wife flirting with me?” He looked up at Gwirion, delighted. “I’ll have to go to war more often. Come up and play.”
Gwirion willed his exhaustion to visually manifest itself. “I’ve been on the road without rest for two days, sire, I would be a disappointment to you. I need to sleep.”
Noble shrugged, then smiled lecherously at his wife. “I hope you don’t need to sleep, milady, because I don’t intend to let you. Take leave of your new friend for the night.” He playfully pivoted her toward Gwirion.
They avoided any direct glance. “Good evening, Gwirion. Thank you. For everything.”
“Good evening, milady,” he mumbled in response. “It was my privilege.”
SHE had straightened the bedchamber before coming down to greet him, but as he cheerfully pulled off his dusty clothes she stared desperately about to make sure no hint of what had just happened here remained.
“What did you mean before?” she asked, to cover her fidgeting. “About Gwirion never leaving the castle?”
Noble sat down on the bed to unstrap his boots. “Haven’t you noticed that he doesn’t?”
“He has no reason to.”
“He invents reasons all the time. Whenever he’s angry with me, he threatens to run off. He never has and he never will.”
“Why not?” she pressed.
Noble paused, grimacing, fidgeting with the week-old stubble he was desperate to be rid of. “It’s not my place to tell you.”
She looked at him in surprise; he usually took as much glee in disregarding other people’s proprieties as Gwirion himself did. “Not your place? You’re the king. It’s your place to say whatever you wish to.”
“I don’t wish to say what happened to Gwirion.” He grinned broadly. “What I do wish is for you to undress and lie down. Let’s not waste his gallantry in saving your little body from imprisonment.” Her stomach tightened as he threw the blankets aside: She had stripped the sheeting from the bed and hidden it, but had been too flustered and hurried to find a replacement.
“What’s the meaning of this?” He frowned, examining the bare mattress. “Why is my bed unmade?”
If he’d asked her a question that required yes or no for an answer, she might have been able to dissemble, but inventing a falsehood at that moment was beyond her. “The sheet was stained,” she said, trying to sound casual. She wrapped her arms around herself and suddenly realized that even if she could get through this moment, her body offered as much evidence as the bedding had.
He stared at her for a moment in confusion, then a look of anger crossed his face. “That whoreson,” he spat. “Using my bed to rape my servants.” He didn’t notice her sag heavily against the bedpost as he replaced his annoyance with a suggestive smile. “Well. If the baron has desecrated our bed, then we must resanctify it, mustn’t we?” He held out his hand and beckoned for her.
“You’re very dusty from the road, shall we bathe first?” she said quickly, silently thanking whatever guardian angel had put the words into her mouth.
He smiled approvingly. “Lord, yes. And let’s get rid of this,” he added, scratching the beard. “Before I start looking like a Norman. One of those defeated fellows.”
GWIRION retreated to his closet behind the kitchen chimney, to the warmth and privacy he thought he’d never see again, which he’d been away from for nearly four nights in a row—one of the longest absences of his life. He crawled under his blanket, comforted by the familiar space, and tried hard to pretend he didn’t know what the king was doing. He was undoubtedly doing it far better than Gwirion had, which was the best reason to try to forget it was happening.
THE next morning on Noble’s orders the entire castle rose late. The king, still jubilant from victory, graciously received spontaneous applause first in chapel and then again at board. The queen missed mass and when she finally appeared, to eat, she moved very gingerly toward the high table, nodding with bashful pleasantness to the many servants and villagers whose adoration she had earned over the past week. She avoided Gwirion’s eyes. Noble, watching her with a satisfied grin, whispered to Gwirion, “I gave her the riding of her life, she’s never had half so much ploughing in one night.”
“Probably not a quarter as much,” Gwirion said quietly, feeling ill and picking at his barley bread. If Noble thought it was a deliberate deadpan, at least he didn’t have to fake cheeriness. “I’m surprised Your Majesty didn’t choose somebody a little more exciting for your homecoming romp.”
“I had romps enough at the front,” Noble whispered back. “This was better than a romp. And she always smells so good.” Gwirion involuntarily made a distressed expression, and Noble laughed. “Stop that, Gwirion, she’s not the ogress you pretend she is. Anyhow, all she’s useful for now, really, is an heir, and I need one, preferably a legitimate one. This episode with Mortimer has convinced me of that. I’ll find another mother if I must, but legitimate offspring would be best, especially if we have to deal with the English in the future.”
“Ah, I see,” Gwirion said. “You’re suspending recreational sex in favor of procreational sex.”
Noble grinned. “Exactly.”
“Well where’s the fun in that?” Gwirion said, desperately grasping for something wittier to say and finding his brain turned to mush.
Sound cynical, he thought, and perhaps he won’t notice anything’s different. He’d already retreated from the impulsive honesty that had led to his confession. His determination to be truthful had evaporated; now he just wanted the event and all its evidence to permanently disappear, for everybody’s sake.
Noble looked pleased with himself. “Oh, I’ve trained her pretty well by now and she’s an admirably apt pupil. When you claim them virginal, you can convince them that almost anything is normal.” He grinned. “You’re perverse, you might take great advantage of that. What do you say? I owe you a huge favor and you’re quite the hero now. I could find you a willing concubine without much trouble.”
“No thank you,” Gwirion said, but immediately reconsidered. Maybe that was the way to free himself from thoughts of her. “I’d say yes, but I’m so busy saving the kingdom and all that nonsense, I just don’t know when I’d find the time to train her.”
“I would train her for you.” The king winked.
“Aren’t you saving yourself for the queen?”
“For you, my friend, I will always make allowances.”
“I’m deeply honored,” Gwirion said in an exaggerated monotone, and the king clapped him on the shoulder.
“Is it some experiment of yours, this new delivery?”
“Yes, sire, it’s so the next time you go away, I can stand in for Gwilym,” he said, imitating the steward’s somber diction. “And nobody will notice I’m not him.”
“Gwilym is twice your size,” Noble pointed out.
Gwirion leaned in close to Noble. “Not where it matters, sire,” he assured him, with an exaggerated wink.
She watched them whispering together and it enraged her. Obviously Noble was bragging about his performance in bed the night before, and apparently Gwirion was making crass remarks, probably about her, because Noble was smiling and laughing, sometimes folding his hands in front of his lips with the forefingers pressed together, which was always a sign he was hiding a vicious delight. She knew Gwirion had no choice, but it hurt her. He would do whatever he had to do to make things seem normal, to protect himself, and there was no reason to think he’d spare her in the process. It was safer for both of them if he didn’t, in fact, but she wasn’t sure she could survive it. Maybe he would decide to run off after all. The thought brought as much depression as it did relief.
After the meal, she excused herself to her chamber and closed herself in with the sewing bevy. These were her only safe companions now, she realized with an internal groan. She took up her old task of spinning and lost herself in the mesmerizing monotony of the work, remembering last summer when she had also turned to this for comfort. At least then she’d had Adèle. At least then it had been warmer too, and there was sunlight, even if it was relentlessly grey or at best silver. To keep out the winter chill, the windows were now sealed with waxed cloth, and nearly all the light came from the wall sconces. For some reason this didn’t give the room the coziness of the receiving chamber below; it only made it feel that much more a cage.
Two tedious hours later there was a knock on the door. She acknowledged it, assuming it was the chandler coming in to check the fire. Instead Gwirion entered carrying a basket of freshly laundered rags. The pit of her gut clenched when she saw him. “Excuse me, Your Majesty, Marged wants to know if the kitchen may have these, or if they should be mended to be of use elsewhere first.” He avoided looking at her as he put the basket down, even taking a step away when she approached, pretending to clean his fingernails as he waited. The rags were the remains of bed curtains, hung along the outer sections of the hall to provide nominal privacy at night. They were unstained but very worn.
“We can make sheets of these,” she said. “If Marged needs some rags, she may have what’s left over, there should be plenty.”
He nodded once, excused himself, and left. Isabel immediately put aside her spinning to follow him out.
“Gwirion,” she hissed in the shadows of the balcony. He froze, and turned back to her, almost squirming, his foot on the top stair.
“Your Majesty?” he replied as neutrally as he could.
Now she had nothing to say. “Was there a reason for that?” she finally asked.
“Yes, milady,” he said respectfully. “Marged wanted to know if—”
“That’s not what I meant,” she snapped, and it made a bad impression on him in combination with the wimple. She lowered her voice to a whisper, afraid her words would carry down to the hall. “You know that’s not what I meant. Why did you bring it? You don’t run errands for her.”
“She asked me to and I couldn’t say no without seeming strange,” he whispered back, which was the truth. “I was not looking for an excuse to get near you—is that what you’re accusing me of?”
“I didn’t mean it as an accusation. God forbid you actually try to be in my presence.”
“I think God does forbid it,” he answered. “I’m not much of a Christian so I ignore him. But I’m not an idiot either. We have to stay away from each other until we can behave normally and pretend nothing happened.”
Everything vulnerable inside her wanted to shriek at him, but she forced herself to stay calm. “You’re saying that once we’ve lost the desire to be around each other, then we may be around each other.”
He almost smiled. “Yes, I suppose that’s it.”
“Since avoiding each other is logistically impossible, could we perhaps discuss alternatives?”
“Could you perhaps be more officious?” he answered with nervous sarcasm. But he stepped away from the stairs, then slipped around behind her and began playing with her veil, trying not to think about all that it was shielding from his view. He spoke in a low voice, not a whisper; whispering, if anyone in the hall happened to glance up and see them here, would look suspicious. “Your headdress slipped and I’m adjusting it for you.” She nodded, picked up her rosary and ran her fingers anxiously around the outline of the crucifix. “First of all,” he said quietly, “it will not happen again, you understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said with exaggerated impatience, furious that he’d said it first. Or perhaps that he’d said it at all. His touch, even in passing on the back of her veil, made her light-headed. She tugged at the shadowed side of her wimple and pulled the whole thing askew, to give him something real to do with his nervous fingers.
“And it’s better for us to stay away from each other until we’re each…calmer about it.”
“We can’t shun each other utterly,” she insisted. “He believes us to be friends at least.”
“He has no idea what a friendship between us would resemble. Considering our history, simply ignoring each other could constitute profound affection.”
“Maybe six months ago, but not now. Now he would notice.”
“Your Majesty,” Gwirion corrected, with a grudging smile at her naiveté, “Even I lack the exaggerated self-importance to believe that Noble will notice anything in the next week but celebrating his victory and dispersing the army. He won’t even open court again until Lent at the earliest. There couldn’t be a better time for us to snub each other.” Inspired—and desperate—he grabbed the opportunity to estrange her and with a harsh tug on the wimple added: “You should realize that better than I, Your Majesty—you’re the one obsessed with invading the enclave of courtly power. Speaking of which, how many points do you score for ensnaring the king’s top man? That must be quite a coup.”
She drew a sharp, indignant breath, but caught herself and said with cutting dryness, “Kindly envision me turning around and smacking you very hard across the face.” He had to duck his head away to hide how charmed he was by the retort. “I presume your silence is an acknowledgment that you were speaking rubbish,” she continued. “If you said it to generate antagonism, then you’re very shortsighted. Antagonism will catch his attention. You should know that, it’s how you curry favor with him half the time.”
He resented how attractive the uttering of insults made her. “Then are we agreed that an act of mutual indifference is the safest course for now?”
“No,” she insisted. “It must be an affectation of friendship, if you can possibly bring yourself to be decent to me. Anything else will make him suspicious.”
“A compromise, then,” Gwirion said stubbornly. “Two weeks of cold shoulders followed by a month of pleasantries.”
“He believes us to be friends now.”
“Well then, he’s wrong. It has been known to happen. And now I must be going, I’ve run out of wimple.” He stepped away, not looking at her.
“Do you regret that it happened?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“Considering the consequences, of course I regret it,” he whispered impatiently, moving toward the stairs, but then he softened. “If I had escaped, no, I wouldn’t regret it at all.” He would not look her in the face. “Am I excused, Your Majesty?”
THAT evening the king and queen, standing together, opened the hall for Candlemas and the entire village walked up to the castle carrying tapers. This holiday, in the bleakest, dullest part of the year, was a symbol of hope and renewal: The procession of candles was a collective reminder that the sun, the great god Llew, was returning to them at last. This had been manipulated by the church into the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, a day celebrating Mary’s ritual cleansing after childbirth, and her return to the church (“What church?” Gwirion interrupted incredulously when Father Idnerth attempted to give his usual brief sermon between courses at the supper feast. “Jesus hadn’t yet been crucified, there was no church!”)
And this year, of more import than any symbolic or religious meaning, there was a victory to celebrate: Roger Mortimer had been prevented, again, from taking Maelienydd. The queen’s brother was free, his lands restored to him, and his primary allegiance sworn to Noble. Thomas would host a large, permanent garrison of Welsh fighters who would patrol the border, overseeing new standing defenses: a dyke and palisade, to be built and paid for by Roger Mortimer. Noble explained all this informally to the assembly; the people were thrilled, even with the details they did not quite understand, and the ready flow of ale made their laughter, their applause, and their general delight ring out in peals into the night. The king also took a moment to publicly acknowledge Gwilym’s selfless and unprecedented yielding of castellan rights to the queen, and to praise the queen for her able job of standing in for him while he was away. “My mother Queen Efa and all who came before her would rejoice to add this woman to the roster of worthy consorts,” he declared, and she blushed, more grateful for his praise than for all the adoration of their subjects. He had never so nearly treated her like a peer—all the more remarkable now, when she knew full well that the political value of the marriage had been virtually nullified. Gwirion watched silently from the hearthside, sadly dazzled by how beautiful she was when she was happy.
Isabel feared that the hour-long elegiac poem about Cadwallon’s murder would be dragged out again, but instead a young poet—sent by Llewelyn as part of his damage payment—presented a poem in progress extolling Noble’s virtue in battle. Gwirion, who’d resolutely refused to speak to the queen all evening, looked trapped, almost persecuted, by a verse singing his praises for heroically defending her. He did not return to his normal humor until the applause and cheering had died away and the chaplain was halfway through the blessing in honor of the spring hunt, which would begin the next morning at dawn. In keeping with tradition, most of Idnerth’s hunting prayer was drowned out by urgent whispered conferences between the villagers and castle servants concerning, for example, bets placed on chess games between the mayor and the steward.
Then Gwirion was asked to perform. He had played for them all five thousand times before, but tonight it was as if an archangel were gracing them with his artistry; this was his share of the adoring celebrity the people of Maelienydd were slathering on the three of them. Noble had offered him new clothes, but he’d refused them, saying he preferred his familiar shabby, shapeless garments. He did this entirely because he wanted desperately to look handsome to the queen and refused to let himself indulge the impulse.
She’d been able to distract her mind from the poet’s incantation, but the harp went right through her. As always, his first tune was “Rhiannon’s Tears,” and hearing it distressed her so deeply she had to make an excuse to her husband and leave the hall. Needing privacy and knowing Angharad and Madrun were in the solar, she slipped out into the courtyard, hiding in the shadowed niche between the end of the hall and the barbican tower. She hadn’t brought a mantle with her, not wanting to draw attention by asking for one, and within moments she was shaking from the cold, but she hardly noticed. She knelt down and lifted the hem of her skirt to her face, wracked by frustrated sobs. When she had finally calmed herself, she pressed the heels of her hands against the frozen building stones until they were almost numb, then held them over her eyes until, she hoped, the evidence of her weeping had subsided.
Inside, Gwirion had finished playing and was sitting next to Noble—in her chair. Whose idea was that? Nervously, she approached the two men. They sat in their usual evening poses, Noble reclining comfortably, legs stretched out before him with feet crossed at the ankles and his fingers interlaced behind his head, Gwirion sitting upright and alert, almost pitched forward, as if he were about to be catapulted somewhere. They both noticed her approach and responded at the same moment but in very different ways: Noble, with an easy smile to her, signaled Hafaidd to bring another seat, but Gwirion leapt out of her chair as if the bottom were on fire. Realizing he’d drawn Noble’s attention by his abruptness, he continued the natural arc of his movement by dropping into a cartwheel that landed him on the far side of the king. Then, as if this were a perfectly common mode of perambulating, he settled nonchalantly on the floor by Noble’s seat and fixed his attention on the young bard who was performing.
“You needn’t spring away like that, Gwirion, I don’t have the plague,” Isabel said in a pleasant voice as she sat, determined to show him how easy and preferable it was to be kindly toward each other.
“I’m sorry, did Your Majesty speak?” he said impassively, not looking at her. “I missed it.”
“I said I don’t have the plague,” she repeated, still very sweetly, and busied herself adjusting and smoothing her skirt to affect offhandedness.
“I never suggested that you did, milady,” he said reasonably, and straightened up again, pointedly looking at the musician.
Not even a jibe. If anything, she thought irritably, he would raise Noble’s suspicions by his very blandness. And Noble did, in fact, find it an odd exchange.
“Are you being short with the queen, Gwirion?” he asked warningly.
“Not as short as I am with you, sire, considering you’re a good deal taller than she is. I’ll be less short if you wish it, though.” In a single smooth move, he leapt up onto the arm of Noble’s chair, perched on the backrest—and then sat astride the royal shoulders, as Noble lurched to keep his balance from the suddenness of the action. “Now I’m far from short!” Gwirion crowed. “I’m taller even than you. In fact, if you would just stand up, I’ll reach such heights that you need never fear my being short with anyone again.”
“We’ll see about that,” Noble muttered. He stood slowly, lifting Gwirion on his shoulders, and the entire hall turned to stare at them. The bard silenced his instrument; nobody even noticed. Gwirion, grinning, waved grandly as the king took a few steps away from the hearth toward a clump of matted rushes strewn on the floor. He braced his hands just above his knees and with an abrupt jerking motion flung his upper body forward until he was bent over double. Gwirion, with a startled grunt, tumbled off the descending royal shoulders and landed on his back on the rushes, his complaints drowned out by laughter from their audience.
“I’d rather you be short, at least then I can keep an eye on you,” Noble said with an affectionate smirk, giving him a hand up.
“As it pleases His Most Royal Majesty,” Gwirion intoned a little breathlessly, recovering at once and giving him a very exaggerated bow. “But now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m for bed.” Ignoring the queen, he bowed his head to Noble and departed for his little room, acknowledging the affectionate farewells that the crowd called out to him.
“What a silly fellow,” Noble said, smiling, sitting again beside his wife, his mind a thousand miles away from the awkward moment that had birthed the silliness. She didn’t reply, afraid her voice would not be steady. This was even worse than the old antagonism. Now he was camouflaging his coldness to her, not flaunting it as he had before, so there was no way to seek even sympathy from Noble, let alone reprieve from Gwirion himself.