Two days later, Marc came for me at dawn, as he had promised. I wondered at the propriety of our journeying together, even if only for a day. Perhaps, because I was a widow, I was allowed this kind of freedom. It could also have been that Prioress Edyth was happy to get me off her hands in any fashion she could. Sort of like Sir John, in point of fact. I guess at thirty-seven, I am a far less endearing person than I was at twenty.
I debated returning to Prioress Edyth and trying again to convince her that I knew Marc from when I’d lived with Llywelyn, but in the end decided against it. By now, I didn’t have very many choices—did I have any choices?—and although I didn’t trust Marc, he appeared to have a certain sort of honor. To make myself feel safer, I stole a small knife from the kitchen and secreted it in my pack. If Marc was determined to kill me, it wouldn’t be of much use, but it helped me keep a grip on rationality.
It was a fine day in late August—perfect for jogging along on the horse Marc had provided. For over an hour after we left the convent, Marc didn’t say a single word to me. He rode a few yards ahead, his shoulders stiff and his back straight. Clearly, our meeting had brought up bad memories, and he hadn’t forgiven me for whatever it was that he believed I’d done.
And truly, I wanted to know what that was. “When did you leave Prince Dafydd’s service?” I raised my voice so my words could cross the yards that separated us.
I thought at first that he wasn’t going to answer, he took so long to speak, but then he said, “Earlier this year.”
“How, then, can your leaving him be my fault?”
But Marc had gone mute again. As a result, I dropped farther behind him. In the weeks since I’d arrived, I’d thought of little else but that single year with Llywelyn that had changed my life so completely. Marc had barely played into it, which is why it had taken so long to recognize him—that and the years hadn’t been as kind to him as they’d apparently been to me. He’d been there at the river. I’d seen him in the company of Prince Dafydd during his visit to Brecon when I was pregnant with David. What had Marc done to turn Prince Dafydd against him sixteen years later that had anything to do with me?
Suddenly, two men on horseback burst from the woods in front of Marc. One of them held a sword. I reined in, my horse feeling my panic and skittering sideways.
“Stay away from me!” Fifty feet ahead of me, Marc’s horse danced away from the two others.
I didn’t know what to do. I sidled my horse to the side of the road, warring between turning tail and running and staying to help—if I even could. It wasn’t as if I could ride to Marc’s rescue.
The man with the sword had fair hair and a short, stocky build. He stuck out his chin at Marc. “You dare to give me orders?”
Marc, however, wasn’t intimidated. “Is this not cowardly, Henry?” He pulled out his sword too and waved it at the lead rider. “Are your orders to dispose of me now? Why can’t Prince Dafydd let me live in peace?”
“You failed in your duty, Marc.” Henry’s voice was all reason, as if it was perfectly acceptable for him to attack Marc in the middle of the day and Marc should simply yield. “You know too much about his plans. The Prince lives, and thus, you must die.”
My brain could barely process Henry’s words. Prince Dafydd had plotted against Llywelyn again? Is that what they were talking about?
For all that Llywelyn had tried to protect me from scenes such as this, I had seen violence when I’d lived with him. But I hadn’t faced a sword in so long, the fear caught me by surprise, closing my throat and making my heart beat in my ears. I felt disembodied, hovering above the men as they hacked at each other and as the historian in me objectively observed how awkward it was to try to fight on horseback.
Although he received at least one solid blow to the head from the unnamed second man’s shield, Marc was able to ram his sword through the man’s stomach before slashing the throat of Henry’s horse. Henry slipped his feet from the stirrups before the horse could crush him and landed on his feet. From the saddle, Marc swung his sword at him. Henry backed way and balanced on the edge of the road, in danger of losing his footing on the soft ground near the trees.
Marc, in this incarnation, had no regrets or recriminations. His face had fallen into grim and determined lines. He wasn’t going to lie down and die before Henry.
“You betrayed us, Marc!” Henry voice carried above the trees. “It is by your cowardice that the Prince still lives. If you have any loyalty left towards Prince Dafydd, you will put up your sword and come with me now.”
“And allow you to murder me the moment I lower my guard?” Cursing his denial, Marc struck Henry’s sword such a blow that Henry dropped it. Marc leaned forward, grabbed Henry by the upper arm and jerked him so that he was standing on his tiptoes. “You dare come at me with your accusations?” Marc said. “You know nothing about me or what I have done.”
“Prince Dafydd—”
“Prince Dafydd let me go. I don’t care if you tell him that you found me. He will know you failed to subdue me. The next time I see you, I will kill you.”
I believed Marc, and Henry took him at his word too. Marc loosened his grip and Henry twisted away. Five seconds later, he had leapt the ditch beside the road and disappeared into the trees that lined it. Marc let him go, and then like the felling of a great tree in the forest, tilted sideways in the saddle, slid off his horse, and landed with a hollow thump on the ground.
I dismounted and ran forward to fall on my knees at Marc’s side. Truth be told, even if Marc hated me, I needed him. If he died, I didn’t know what I would do. Perhaps I could journey to the ship by myself for the short distance remaining, but I feared encountering Henry or other strange men. It wasn’t like I was dressed as a nun.
I patted Marc’s body up and down but the only blood on him was spray from the man he’d killed. The blow to his head must have been worse than it first appeared, and I was glad that Marc hadn’t keeled over until after Henry had gone.
“I should have known better than to major in history.” I mumbled the words to myself as I eased Marc’s helmet from his head. “Nursing would have served me better.”
The blow to Marc’s head had dented his helmet and produced an ugly knot where Henry had struck him. A sliver of metal was embedded in his skin and blood seeped from the wound, clotting in his hair.
For a moment, I wished I still had my pocket-sized first aid kit, but then dismissed the thought. I couldn’t doctor Marc properly, but I wasn’t entirely without resources.
When I’d come to the nunnery, I’d possessed nothing other than what I stood up in. But Prioress Edyth had given me a parting gift of a satchel with a change of clothes, food, and a water skin, plus a medieval version of a first aid kit: a salve of sanicle, tweezers, and some linen bandages. She must have known her brother better than I’d thought.
With the metal tweezers, which looked remarkably like ones I might have purchased from a store at home, I drew the sliver out. It wasn’t long, but it had been stopping up the wound, which now bled freely.
Hurrying now lest Marc lose too much blood, I pressed a cloth against the wound. The blood had soaked his hair, but I cleared the area around the wound and sponged at it gently with a second damp cloth. It was just as well, in truth, that I didn’t have my original first aid kit. Marc probably would woken up, balked at the packaging, and decided I was a witch, on top of my other failings.
Part of me would have preferred to leave him in the dust and continue the journey by myself, but I couldn’t do it. Just because he hated me, didn’t mean I could abandon him in his distress. It was some comfort that at this point he needed me more than I needed him.
Pressing firmly, I eventually stemmed the bleeding, and then wrapped his head with a strip of linen. Even after I finished, I stayed on the ground, cradling his head in my lap and waiting for him to wake.
He didn’t stir. I sat there, feeling more and more uncomfortable in my exposed position and trying to figure out what I would do if he never woke. I had two horses, a road the end of which I didn’t know, and an unconscious man whom I couldn’t hope to lift onto a horse. I wasn’t too happy about the dead man and a couple of feet from me either.
I was starting to wonder if I really should leave Marc, in order to seek help in a nearby village (provided I could find one) when Marc moaned and jerked his shoulders. He tried to sit up, but fell back, his hand to his head. No doubt he found his position on my lap as uncomfortable as I did, because he grimaced at me and tried to put me in my place.
“What have you done to me, woman?” he said. “My head aches like the devil himself were inside it!”
“You received a blow to the head and fell off your horse,” I said. “You bled everywhere, but I bound your wound and, hopefully, if you go slowly, your wound will heal.”
He glared at me, but I returned his gaze without animosity. He grumbled to himself and very slowly sat up. I scooted away and handed him the water skin so he could drink. After a few more minutes, he was able to lever himself to his feet. He rested his head against his horse and slowly stroked its neck.
“Are we in danger from Henry, do you think?” I said.
Marc sighed and patted his horse some more, back to his usual silence. Fortunately, this time, he condescended to break it. “Henry is my cousin,” he said in a level voice, the first time I’d heard him use it. “While Edyth and I share a father, Henry is the eldest son of my father’s brother. Upon his deathbed, my uncle asked me to look after him. Henry is five years younger than I, and has always been greedy, conniving, and very, very intelligent. I thought I could control him and failed in the worst possible way.
“Since Prince Dafydd returned to Wales—after the agreement of 1277—Henry rose higher in the Prince’s estimation, to my detriment. It was through me that Henry came to the Prince’s attention in the first place, but I realize now that Henry continually whispered untruths about me in the Prince’s ear. Prince Dafydd, in turn, saw the possibilities in my brother: that he would carry out his bidding, no matter what it was. That brought Henry more power. Through Henry’s urging, Prince Dafydd reconciled with Prince Llywelyn. As Prince Dafydd’s influence grew, so did Henry’s.”
“What plan did you fail to complete that brought down Prince Dafydd’s ire on you?” I said. “Did he order you to … assassinate Prince Llywelyn?”
Marc opened one eye and then closed it, before answering a question I hadn’t asked. “Henry rescued me from my debtors, but I owed him money, and he never let me forget it. He threatened to expose my failings to my other creditors. And to Prince Dafydd, if I didn’t take the blame for something I didn’t do. That the plan failed is Henry’s doing, not mine.”
“What plan?”
But Marc didn’t answer. He gripped his horse’s mane and pulled himself into the saddle as if he were climbing the last peak of a tall mountain range. Once in the saddle, he looked first at me and then away down the road.
“I will speak no more of this,” he said. “It is over. Now remount your horse and we will be on our way.”
He urged his horse forward and I hurried to catch my own horse and mount, my head spinning all the while. The need to see Llywelyn had risen as an ache in my breast I hadn’t felt for many years. I’d fought it; I’d beaten it down; I’d suppressed it to the point that I believed I could live a normal life. I had lived a normal life. But all I’d done was lull myself into living a lie.
For the rest of the day, I rode well behind Marc. Whether his silence was due to shame or anger I did not know. I was as lost in the Middle Ages as I’d ever been.
* * * * *
“You must be Mistress Marged,” the stocky captain of the Morgannwg said in Welsh as I dismounted. Marc was already turning his horse around as if he meant to leave that very minute.
“Yes, sir,” I said in the same language, glancing back at Marc. “How soon do we sail?”
“With the tide, Madam. One hour. Please come aboard.”
I glanced past him to the little boat that would carry me to Wales and thought ugly thoughts.
“Are there any other passengers?” I wanted to know how many others might witness my upcoming humiliation.
The captain hesitated, leaned forward, and lowered his voice. “There is one, Madam. He should remain hidden, and you need not encounter him.”
“Why ever not?”
“He is a physician.” Morgan pursed his lips, thinking. “He is … a Jew.”
“Oh,” I said.
“The man saved my daughter’s life, and I feel I must accommodate his request for passage to Wales. If you are concerned about sailing with him—”
The man hesitated again and I hurried to reassure him. “I’m not concerned, sir. Please don’t worry about him on my account. I confess I am not a good sailor, and I might have need of his assistance on the voyage.”
The captain opened his mouth as if to speak, seemed to think better of it, and then blurted out his thoughts anyway. “But, Madam! The Archbishop of Canterbury has forbidden Jewish physicians to practice on English Christians.”
The light dawned. I had momentarily forgotten about this odious era of English history.
“Then it’s a good thing we’re not English, isn’t it?” I swept up the gangplank past him.
“It is indeed, Madam.” The captain barked a laugh behind me. “It is indeed.”
I found myself on board a single-masted, single-ruddered, cargo vessel that was larger than I had initially thought. Did I want to know what goods he was hauling illegally to Wales? Probably not. It could be food, since drugs were an unlikely source of illicit income in the thirteenth century. The hatch on the main deck was open, revealing a dark space below decks. Two low-ceilinged cabins sat on the deck at the rear of the boat, one for me and one for the captain. Where was the physician staying? Please not in the cargo hold!
I turned around, just as one of the sailors put my satchel on board the ship. Morgan stood at Marc’s stirrup. He hadn’t actually left yet. Marc nodded at something Morgan said and then looked at me.
I raised my hand. “Thank you, Marc.”
He hesitated and then returned my salutation, before grasping the reins of both his horse and mine and heading back the way we’d come. Meanwhile, a different sailor picked up my satchel, opened the cabin door, and gestured that I should follow him inside.
“Where should I put this, Madam?” he said in Welsh.
“In the corner is fine,” I said.
He dropped it on the floor and left. I surveyed the space that would be my living quarters for the next few days. The furniture included a single chair and table, which was bolted to the floor, and a cloth sling hanging from the ceiling in one corner. It was a hammock, though the captain wouldn’t have used the word, and I hadn’t thought they were known in Europe before the Spanish Conquest. It made me scoff yet again at all historians didn’t get quite right.
I exited my cabin to find the captain just closing the door of the cabin beside mine. Glancing at me, he pulled it shut, but not before I saw the figure of a man, sitting at a table in the far corner. The physician. I was relieved not to have to think the worst of Captain Morgan.
“We sail within the hour, Madam,” the captain said.
“Thank you.” I followed him up the ladder to the top deck. He indicated that I could sit under the canopy at the rear of the boat. I did as he suggested and watched the sun set. It wasn’t clear to me how, exactly, the captain was going to navigate us to Wales in the dark. The thirteenth century might not be pre-hammock, but we were definitely pre-sextant.
The Isle of Man was some distance south and west of Silloth, the village at which we were docked. I couldn’t see the island from where I sat. Hopefully, Captain Morgan had an astrolabe, and between that and dead reckoning, he could find the way.
This proved to be the case, at least for the initial stage of our journey. It took us all night to sail to the Isle of Man, and all of the next day to reach Keill Moirrey, a fishing village on the south end of the island. Because Scotland, not England, ruled the Isle of Man in this time, the village could offer us a safe haven.
Unfortunately, smooth sailing or not, within an hour of leaving Silloth and entering the Irish Sea, I was hanging over the side of the boat, praying for the journey to end. The crew managed to refrain from openly laughing at me, but I could see laughter in their eyes—when I could open mine, that is.
As a teenager, I had once gone deep sea fishing with my aunt and uncle. I’d caught a tuna in that first hour of relative peace, and spent the remaining eight hours on the boat lying on a cushion feeling ill. I’d avoided small boats—any boat, really—ever since. The memory hadn’t improved with time, and this journey felt (if possible) worse.
I was so miserable that I didn’t remember to ask for help from the physician until after we left Keill Moirrey. It was the captain’s comment, “Rough sea ahead!” that reminded me. I leapt to my feet and knocked on the door of the other cabin.
“Come in.” The words were in English.
I opened the door and stepped through it, finding myself in a space equal in size to mine, with its own hammock and table. An older man with a beard and long gown sat in a chair near the starboard window. He got to his feet as I entered and greeted me with a bow. I curtsied, which seemed to surprise him, and he suggested I sit in the only other chair in the room.
I sat and for a minute we just looked at each other.
He spoke first, again in English. “I am Aaron ben Simon.” Then with a wry smile, he added, “I confess you are not what I expected.”
I’d heard that a lot recently. “How is that?”
“The captain led me to believe that you were a widow with two grown children. I had envisioned a woman with more years to her. You are young and beautiful.”
If I were on the internet, I would have typed LOL. That was one of the nicest things anyone had said to me in a long time. I should have been used to everyone’s reaction to my appearance by now, but I kept forgetting. Life was hard for women in the Middle Ages, even those who were rich. By comparison, the twenty-first century provided a very soft life, and that was reflected in my face and, as Edyth had noticed, my hands.
I smiled and thanked him. “My name is Meg, and I assure you that I am long widowed. I am thirty-seven years old, though few have believed this of me of late.”
Aaron’s eyes smiled, even if his mouth didn’t. “How is it that you were in England?”
All of a sudden, I realized he was the first person I had met here who was really looking at me and talking to me, not to a preconception of me that included woman, widow, and dependent person. It made me wonder who Aaron was and if he was representative of the Jewish community in England. I knew he was probably well educated. Certainly he was literate if he was a doctor.
I had a sudden compulsion to tell him the truth—the real truth—but I clamped my lips together and fought the feeling. He watched me, and I decided that some truth was better than none.
“Please forgive me my silence,” I said. “I would rather not lie to you, and that means I can’t tell you anything of myself. Will you accept me as I am for the time being? Hopefully, when we arrive in Wales, I can tell you more of my history.”
Aaron graciously tipped his head.
I sighed in relief. “I was hoping that you could help me with my seasickness. I understand that you are a doctor?”
“Yes.” His expression grew concerned. “But I am forbidden to practice on Christians.”
“English Christians,” I reminded him, “which I am most definitely not. We are also no longer under the jurisdiction of England, so perhaps you would consider helping me?”
“I would be delighted to assist you.” Aaron rose to his feet. “If you give me a moment, I will find something that should stem your nausea.”
“Thank you.” I watched as he went to a trunk, pulled out a large book, and began to page through it.
“What is that book?” I said, after a minute.
“A Greek text,” Aaron said, without turning around. “Why do you ask?”
“That’s too bad. I can’t read Greek.”
Aaron almost dropped the book. “You read, Madam? In what language?”
“In English, Welsh, French, and Spanish,” I said. “And Latin.”
Aaron stared at me, and I couldn’t help feeling pleased. Finally, someone who appreciated my particular talents. Young and beautiful was all very well and good—but smart was better. It hadn’t always been that way for me, which is probably why I’d allowed myself to fall for Anna’s father, but I wasn’t eighteen anymore.
Aaron didn’t question me further, however, because a second later a loud rushing sound came from outside. In unison, we looked towards the doorway, which I had left open for propriety’s sake. Rain beat on the deck so hard I could barely see the wood through the rush of water. The boat had been rolling more and more as Aaron and I had been talking, but our conversation had distracted me from the rocky feeling in my stomach. Now my attention was drawn to it, and the intense queasiness returned. I must have paled because Aaron hurried to his herbal collection and began taking down bottles.
“I can’t promise the immediacy of the cure,” he said, stirring one powder and then another into a glass of wine. “By rights you should have taken this before we left land, for it to reach full potency by the time we reached the open sea.”
“Anything to help me.” I gurgled my unhappiness, my head in my hands. Aaron handed me the wine.
I gazed at it, not dubiously, but suddenly wary of medieval medicine I didn’t know anything about. “What’s in it?”
“Ginger, basil, and peppermint are the best herbs for nausea. Their tastes don’t go well together, however, and usually I use just one, infused in a tea. I have no hot water here and thus I ground the herbs to powder and mixed them with wine. This particular concoction is predominantly ginger. I am out of peppermint.”
Feeling like I had to drink it, if only so Aaron wouldn’t think I mistrusted him, I sipped the drink. It didn’t taste too bad—a good thing because that alone could have made me vomit. I sipped some more and thanked him as he returned to his chair.
“What brings you to this ship?” I said, trying to distract myself from my stomach. “Captain Morgan told me that you’d saved his daughter’s life. Why are you leaving England?”
“I may have saved her life, but I lost my wife and daughter in the same sickness.”
“I’m so sorry!” I said. “How terrible for you!”
“Fortunately, Samuel, my son, was not with us and was spared.”
The silence stretched out, and I was about to prompt him again, when he spoke. “I have worried about the status of Jewry in England for many years. King Henry took our money and allowed us a living, such as it was, but his son, Edward, stripped us of our wealth and standing. He has even closed the synagogues. Many refuse to see the danger, but I am free to make my way in the world. If a more hospitable land exists, I will try to find it.”
“And you think that might be Wales?” I said.
“Prince Llywelyn exhibits few of the excesses of his English cousins. He doesn’t persecute the Jews, and he himself is under the interdict of excommunication. He ignores this by worshipping among the Cistercians, who have no love for the Jews, I admit, but their rule is more tolerant than that of their English brethren.”
“I see,” I said, loving the formality of his vocabulary, and thinking of all the people who left Europe for America over the centuries for the freedom to practice their religion in peace. That was still over three hundred years in the future. Aaron’s decision to sail to Wales was only a first step.
Aaron tilted his head to one side as if curious. “For some reason, I believe you really do see. How is that possible?”
“It is one of things I can’t tell you right now without having to lie,” I said. “And I am tired of lying.”
Aaron nodded and then looked more closely at me. “Your face is turning green.” He said this if making an unimportant observation.
“I feel terrible.”
“Let us walk a little,” Aaron said. “Perhaps the captain would allow me on the deck to escort you to the side of the boat.”
I nodded, and Aaron took my arm. We walked through the door and then a few paces to the left, trying to stay in the shelter of the slight overhang that protected us from the rain. I gripped the rail, but then saw with horror how enormous the waves had become. As the boat went up one wave and down another it seemed that a gulf opened at our feet.
“Madam! Have a care! And you!” Captain Morgan appeared with a glare for Aaron. “What are you thinking?”
“Sorry! Sorry!” Aaron held up his hands, palms outward. “My mistake.”
“Get yourselves back inside!” Captain Morgan grasped our arms and hauled us backwards from the rail towards the cabin door. As the deck of the boat rose again, we fell into Aaron’s cabin, and the captain slammed the door behind us.
I found myself face down, my dress rucked up around my thighs. Fortunately, since I’d been riding astride during my journey, I wore leggings underneath.
I pushed to my hands and knees. “I hate the sea.”
“I can appreciate why,” Aaron said.
Laughter bubbled in my throat and then bile. I forced it back down. Everything that had happened over the last week threatened to overwhelm me all at once, and I moaned. Aaron hooked his hand around my arm and helped me into the hammock. I rocked with the motion of the ship, listening to the rain pound on the roof and praying that I—and this little boat—could keep it together just a little longer.