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Homecoming was a triumph. The Deheubarth men entered the stronghold in Dinefwr to impromptu fanfares and a growing crowd, as those who’d been left behind dropped what they’d been doing, to welcome their warriors.
Riding together at the rear of the party, Estela and Dragonetz benefited from the increased volume of roars as word of victory spread, and ever more people joined the throng.
‘You must be proud,’ Estela murmured.
‘I am. That was the tastiest fish I have ever eaten! We should introduce sewin to the Ebro.’
‘Parsley sauce,’ observed Estela, ‘and I don’t think sewin would swim up to Zaragoza. You’d lose them at sea.’
‘Wave,’ he told her. ‘They think we’re heroes.’
Estela waved and smiled graciously. If Aliénor could only see how they’d carried out her commands. They were here in the heart of Deheubarth, honoured guests.
As the crowd parted, she saw the Welsh nobles, waiting at the foot of the main tower, across the courtyard. Although their clothes would seem rustic in Aliénor’s court and the colours common, they were at least tailored and in blue, red and green rather than the dull browns to which Estela had become accustomed. Which she herself was wearing.
Although she had been schooling herself to return to society, Estela was shocked by how far she had grown used to living with camp followers and soldiers, living a spartan and communal existence. She flushed at how she must look and glanced at Dragonetz.
He had never looked finer, his hauberk and Damascene sword marking him out, long black locks escaping from the mail coif. He had flatly refused to let any man cut his hair, to the point where his comrades threatened to do so in his sleep, but he had conceded over facial hair. Estela thought his Welsh moustache rather attractive but maybe her judgement had been as corrupted as her behaviour by months in Llansteffan.
She glanced down at her grease-stained gown. If only women wore armour! ‘Wave,’ she told Dragonetz. ‘They think we’re heroes.’
The men they’d travelled with, lived with, and slept with, were dismounting, clasping loved ones. Every stone in the castle rang with love and laughter as old men welcomed their sons home; wives sent their children, giggling, to pull on their fathers’ cloaks and fight for attention; grandmothers clucked and the warriors who’d been left behind demanded battle tales.
Estela watched a toddler trip as he reached cautiously for this strange man, his father, home from the wars. The man scooped him up, soothed him, called him ‘bachgennyn’, ‘sweet little boy,’ and Estela’s heart broke into a million pieces. She kept the smile fixed on her face, dismounted, ignored Dragonetz calling to her and used the crowd to disappear, fight her way through to an arch and into darkness. Where she sobbed until she could control herself, pat her face dry, fix the smile back in place and then return to the mass of people.
When she had worked her way back to Dragonetz, she answered his anxious look. ‘Just relieving myself before everyone here has the same need.’
He nodded acceptance of her excuse but the anxiety stayed in his eyes. He knew her too well.
‘There is news,’ he told her. ‘While we reclaimed Deheubarth, Henri has won England. He is Stephen’s heir. The summer agreement is formal now, enshrined in a treaty and signed by all parties.’
‘And Stephen’s health?’
‘Fading.’
So, time would bring Henri – and Aliénor – to the throne of England, God willing. Meanwhile, their loyal subjects must endeavor to win over their less-than-loyal subjects in Deheubarth.
In the familiar routine of castle life, horses were stabled, men billeted and guests allocated beds. Dragonetz and Estela were now guests. Treated as a lady, Estela remembered how a lady should behave, and her reward came in the form of two clean gowns, one red and one blue. Not all the finery of Aliénor’s court seemed as beautiful to her as these simple garments. The addition of a pair of new boots was the cherry on the cake.
Peace and security were their new bedfellows, along with John Halfpenny and Wyn, who ensured a curtain was in place before Estela’s head touched the pillow. When she woke in the night, she could take comfort in privacy; tracing the familiar outline of shoulder-blades, of the muscles in a man’s sword-arm.
‘When can we go home?’ she whispered.
Dragonetz was not asleep either. He turned to hold her. ‘Rhys says we must stay until Twelfth Night. It was not an invitation.’
‘Another six weeks.’ Her heart sank. ‘And we spend Christmas here.’
‘Then we go home,’ he promised.
ON SANTA BARBA’S DAY, Estela rose very early and went to the kitchen in search of soup bowls. The Welsh often made a soup they called cawl, and she had no problem finding suitable bowls. Three would not be missed among so many, and three was the number required by the seasonal tradition of her homeland.
Then she went outside and scooped enough earth from the kitchen garden to fill the bowls. She untied the little pouch she’d carried across land and sea, and shared the wheat seed between the bowls.
Musca and his little friend Primo should have been with her. They were old enough this year to put soil in the bowls with their stubby fingers, to press the seeds into the top, and to watch the magic of the next three weeks which would open those dry cases and let the green shoots grow.
She remembered her mother reminding her to water them each day; her own excitement as green shoots poked through the surface and sprang tall; her pride at table on Christmas Eve when she placed her three fine fields of wheat by the three candles. Had her father praised her or did her memories add love that never existed?
Her mother’s warmth was no false imagining and she wished with all her soul that she could be to her son all that her mother had been to her. More than that: she wished she could be the heart of a domain as her mother had been to Montbrun. The heart of Dragonetz’ domain.
Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Estela took the three bowls back into the kitchen, to the great fireplace, where yesterday’s logs kept their heat without flames, ready to spark anew when today’s wood joined them.
She placed the three bowls carefully at the back of the hearth, where they would be warm and get some light, but would not be scorched. She told a cook what she intended and the woman had taken pity on the foreign guest, assured her that the wheat for Santa Barba would come to no harm.
Satisfied with her work, Estela returned to her accommodation, slipped out of her gown and back into bed. Dragonetz half-woke, murmured, ‘You’ve got mud on your nose,’ and closed his eyes again.
Estela rubbed wet and soil around on her face, then went back to sleep.
RHYS AND MAREDUDD HAD turned into the most considerate of hosts – or of gaolers. Estela was not sure which but she accepted all the invitations to ride out with them. Dragonetz must take every opportunity to plead for King Henri and she would do her part. In truth, discovering the Cantref Mawr, the land at the heart of Deheubarth, was no hardship to a curious mind. A wise traveller took every opportunity to learn all he – or she – could about a place and its people.
Before the brothers had regained their previous kingdom, Cantref Mawr had been all they were allowed to keep, a tiny portion of Deheubarth but a green land of woods, lakes, streams and legends.
‘This is all part of the region where my mother and father lived in the woods, before he left for the north, and she for the last battle.’ Maredudd told them, as they looked out across a vast lake, turquoise as kingfisher’s wings. ‘When we are at war, we retreat here, to the land around Caio. Our people can live in the woods, be harder to find than the Tylwyth Teg, build huts in a day and move as quickly.’
‘On a day just like this, with the winter-fowl calling on the lake, my father passed by, returning from the English court, with some of the King’s greatest lords for company. Earl Milo of Hereford mocked my father’s claim to noble blood. He said there was a saying in Gwalia that should the land’s rightful ruler order the birds on this lake to break into song, then they would obey.
‘Then go you first,’ said my father, ‘as you believe in your right.’
First Milo, then Payn Fitzjohn, each in his turn, ordered the birds to sing but nothing happened.
Then my father prostrated himself as before a battle and prayed, saying to the Lord, ‘If I am the true descendant of the five princes of Cymru, let these birds announce it in your name!’ Then all the birds on the water, each in his manner, beat its wings and sang to acknowledge their rightful ruler.’
‘It is a good tale,’ Rhys pronounced, ‘but I would not test it.’
‘It is our tale, brother!’
They rode from the lake to the River Cothi, ‘famed for its sewin’. Maredudd and Dragonetz exchanged a smile.
Did your people build something there?’ Dragonetz was pointing into a ravine, towards what looked like a ruined tower.
‘No, that’s an illusion. It’s just a stone,’ Maredudd replied, ‘but there are initials carved there and red bricks from old times, from the Romans who lived here centuries ago. They called it the Red Town for its red rock. There are old mineworks and a rock called Clochdy Gweno haunted by the ghost of a girl, Gweno.’ He looked hard at Estela, ‘She went exploring beyond the limits of the rock, into the caves and tunnels, and was taken by the forces of evil–’
Rhys cut in. ‘Dragonetz has no interest in ancient history or ghost stories.’ He turned his horse away from the ravine more smoothly than he turned the subject. ‘When your King comes to his throne, will you ride beside him? Against Deheubarth?’
‘He will have no need to ride against Deheubarth if you are his ally. And why would you not be?’ countered Dragonetz. ‘King Henri has done you no wrong and has no reason to love the lords you’ve defeated. He has regained his rightful kingdom, that his mother lost. You have regained your rightful lands, those your father lost. How could he not take your part? Especially when you keep the Marcher Lords from abusing their power.’
Rhys frowned. ‘They will take their grievances to him, threaten to cause uprisings if he does not make good their claims to our land and help them get it back.’
‘Yes, they will. And Henri will have to choose the force which offers his new kingdom more stability; the might of Deheubarth or a handful of Marcher Lords, who bicker among themselves at the drop of a gauntlet. He’ll have to consider which poses the greater threat; Deheubarth slighted or that same handful of Marcher Lords. I know what choice I’d make, were I king! Or do you think so little of the might of Deheubarth?’
Rhys was no dullard and cut to the heart of what Dragonetz did not say. ‘There is no question of our might. But if the king decides he cannot trust Deheubarth, he will choose the lesser force.’
‘Can he?’ asked Dragonetz. ‘Can he trust Deheubarth?’
The question hung in the air. ‘And if he doesn’t. Will you ride with him against us?’ Rhys answered question with question.
‘I hope to be far from here, in my own domain, from which I have too long been absent.’ Dragonetz also ducked the question. This was news to Estela. Did he mean Malik’s villa in Zaragoza?
‘But you are vassal to King Henri,’ observed Rhys, pressing the point.
‘As are you,’ was Dragonetz’ riposte.
‘We do not acknowledge your system. No Welsh are vassals.’ Rhys was adamant. Which is why they can’t be trusted thought Estela. ‘But you have taken an oath. One that matters to you.’
‘Yes,’ said Dragonetz.
‘And you don’t even know what the man looks like!’ Rhys grunted his contempt and no more was said on the matter.
Later that evening, when they were alone, Estela broke off from describing her favourite parts in the day’s ride when she saw that Dragonetz was not listening.
‘What’s wrong?’ she quizzed him. ‘You have sowed the seeds that should bloom into an alliance if the Welsh lords have any sense. They could not have been more amiable to us.’
‘That’s what worries me. They know I am Henri’s man and yet they are showing me how attractive their lands are. They have hidden nothing from me of their military strength and tactics. In their place, I would hide every asset.’
‘Maybe they trust you. And they wouldn’t consider me important.’
‘Maybe.’