As Tal motioned Ceri to precede him up Castle Westbourne’s exterior steps, the fierce heat of brilliant sunlight from the day’s nearly cloudless sky had begun easing into the cooler comfort of late afternoon’s lengthening shadows. They’d barely entered the entrance tunnel when the echo of Godfrey’s stave striking the stone floor announced his approach. He rushed toward them, anxiously waving his lord into the great hall where a stern-faced messenger from Farleith Keep impatiently waited.
The vast chamber was deserted save for a lone serf sprinkling fresh herbs over the rush-strewn floor and the unwelcome visitor dispatched by Lord James with a harsh message to be delivered directly to the earl of Westbourne.
“My master is weary of the games it seems you would play.” The man refused to offer his arm in response to the one extended toward him in greeting—an insult Tal chose to ignore.
“Lord James will lead his full garrison here in one day’s time.” This statement lacked any hint of emotion but the speaker’s mouth curled with obvious distaste. “In that hour either the betrothal will be performed or the lord of Farleith will demand a blood payment for the insult you’ve done him.”
“Tomorrow?” Ceri repeated, aghast at the sudden prospect of time rapidly disappearing, time necessary to prepare for the inevitable conflict. “Lord James will come tomorrow?”
The visitor curtly nodded—an action Tal mirrored in acknowledgment of an event that could be delayed no longer.
As the cold messenger spun and strode briskly from the hall and the castle, Ceri lifted anxious eyes to Taliesan.
“There’s no help for it,” Tal said with a grim smile but reassuring gaze. “I must go to meet with my garrison, lay plans for the morrow’s difficult confrontation, and secretly appoint a trusted few to execute our evening plan for Edith’s happiness.”
“Go first to assure your Aunt Vevina and grandmother of your safe return but then seek out the dedicated nun soon to be.” Tal solemnly ordered his beloved but in a gentle tone.
Knowing there was no time to waste in further discussion of details, Ceri merely nodded. “I will reassure my family and then promptly share with Edith both the plan and the hour for her to secure the destiny she seeks.”
Before they could retreat to begin performing their tasks, Godfrey reappeared.
“Milord,” the seneschal formally started. “There have been changes to the castle’s roster of guests since your departure yestereve.”
Tal met the vague news with a mocking smile. Considering Ceri’s escape, he could guess the identity of departing guests but waited for Godfrey to announce it with proper decorum.
“Early this morn a message from Bendale arrived, apparently of dire concern as Lord Morton and his sister soon took their leave.”
“Thank you for promptly delivering the good news, Godfrey.” Tal nearly laughed aloud and Ceri grinned. Godfrey properly maintained his solemn facade but couldn’t quell the twinkle in his eyes.
What little of the afternoon remained passed in such a busy haze that Ceri barely noticed the continuing, even increased, distrust shown by other castle inhabitants. The evening meal’s atmosphere was nearly morose after rumors of Lord James’s threatened arrival on the following day flew through healthy gossip vines.
Ceri was strangely relieved when at last the moment arrived to set the first in a series of dangerous plans into motion. She slipped quietly into the family chapel where Edith was ostensibly spending the night before her betrothal in earnest prayers.
At even the faint sound of an opening door, Edith spun hopefully toward the portal now filled with a welcome friend bearing the serviceable symbol of a much desired gift.
“It’s nothing like as beautiful as yours, but I promise that it is warm enough to protect you from the night chill beyond bailey walls.” Ceri offered this gentle assurance while moving forward to settle the hood of a simple homespun cape over Lady Edith’s head. It would shield the girl’s unmistakable pale hair from too curious eyes.
Though years younger, Edith was of a height with the petite Ceridwen. Thus the latter’s garment fit and covered the other from head to toe. It was a disguise necessary to see Lord Tal’s plan reach its successful conclusion.
They stood alone in the chapel as darkness descended. Carefully chosen guardsmen would soon be waiting in the courtyard to escort Lady Edith to the nunnery at St. Basil’s. The convent lay just over the southern border and within the safe haven of the earl of Gloucester’s lands.
The mother superior there would welcome a new novice. More importantly, the religious house in Gloucester owed no loyalty to Lord James who was King Stephen’s staunch supporter. This meant that the baron of Farleith could not recover his daughter by any means short of open battle with the much more powerful Earl Robert and on the earl of Gloucester’s own lands.
“For your unearned kindness and aid in helping me secure my destiny—” As Edith squeezed Ceri’s fingers her eyes were damp but this time with tears of gratitude not anguish. “I will pray for your health and happiness daily.”
“God go with you,” Ceri sincerely wished the younger woman well on this secret journey and in the life she had chosen. Nay, as Edith said repeatedly, the life to which God had called her.
A brisk knocking on the door was a firm announcement to the two inside that the moment of departure had arrived. Ceri gave Edith an impulsive hug and turned her toward the portal as it opened to reveal a towering figure in its frame.
Stepping into the room and to one side to ease Edith’s path into the corridor, Tal spoke quietly to the chamber’s lone remaining occupant.
“What my mind recalls only through a haze, my heart remembers clearly.” With that cryptic comment Tal lifted Ceri’s hand and quickly pressed a kiss into her sensitive palm. “No matter the outcome of the morrow’s certain conflict, remember that you are now and will always be the precious center of my heart.”
With a nervous Edith at his side and waiting guardsmen doubtless impatient to be off, Tal could tarry no longer and promptly turned to escort the pious girl to join her armed escorts.
But even as the sound of retreating footsteps faded, Ceri felt cradled in the warmth of Taliesan’s love. While Edith’s dreams were about to be granted, Ceri’s own quest for happiness had won its goal in Tal’s declaration of love. Yet now she would take Edith’s place at the prie-dieu to earnestly pray that her happiness would not be short-lived.
* * *
A day both anticipated and dreaded had dawned. In Castle Westbourne the refurbished family chapel lay in readiness, and in that empty chamber the priest summoned to perform betrothal rites awaited the participants’ arrival.
In the solar not far away, Westbourne’s dictatorial countess stood immobilized by the control necessary to tame her temper.
“Where is Lady Edith?” Angwen demanded, coils of silver-streaked hair settled upon her head like a crown. “Lord James wishes to speak with his daughter before the rite commences.”
“I have not seen the future bride since the meal last eve.” By virtue of lengthy experience, Vevina met her lady’s glare unwavering.
“Well, someone must have.” Angwen was losing patience and spitefully added, “Find her friend, her only human friend—your niece—and send her to me.”
Vevina easily recognized this as the threat against Ceri which she and her lady each knew that it was. Ceridwen had been rescued and returned to the castle less than a full day past and thus was unlikely to know any about the missing bride.
“I will go in search of both Lady Edith and Ceridwen,” Vevina calmly announced before deliberately turning to leave the solar, back straight and chin proudly uptilted.
While Lady Angwen scowled and impatiently waited, Vevina started briskly down the corridor. She was intent on her plan for descending into the kitchens, there to either find Ceri or learn precisely where her niece had been sent.
Vevina’s intentions were abruptly altered when her path was obstructed by Lord Taliesan’s powerful form. She had no choice but to halt, curtsy, and wait to learn what he would have of her.
“Is my lady mother in the solar?” Tal’s flat tone betrayed no hint of the tension building in advance of the possible soon coming conflict which in actual fact no action he took could prevent.
Assuming Lord Tal meant to escort the countess of Westbourne to the betrothal ceremony, Vevina gave him a warm smile and promptly nodded. If mother and son retreated into the chapel, surely her current task would be unnecessary?
“Then by my command return to her side and ensure that she doesn’t put herself at risk by attending the fraudulent rites.”
“At risk? Fraudulent?” Vevina frowned but her lord’s attention had already shifted.
By Westbourne’s strong gossip vines everyone knew of Lord James’s threat that if the betrothal was not performed this day, a payment in blood would be demanded. Was Ceri, as the bride’s friend, actually a part of some foolish plan to prevent the rites? Though the past night Vevina had admired Ceri’s selfless insistence that her grandmother continue to share the alcove’s comfortable pallet, now she feared more lay behind the thoughtful gesture. In what perilous action was the girl involved?
Bewildered and worried, Vevina watched as Lord Tal briskly strode past her to reach the end of the hallway and turn toward the chapel built within the width of the corridor’s stone wall.
An extremely limited party of guests were crowded into the chapel too small to hold more. Taking up an unfair share of the chamber, the beefy Lord James scowled. He had asked to see his daughter before the ceremony but since Edith had yet to appear it was plain that his request had been most unjustly ignored—a further wrong to be added to his list of the earl of Westbourne’s many.
Lord James and his most skilled warriors from Farleith were lined up along one side of the chapel while their protagonists, the earl of Westbourne and his knights, stood against the opposite wall. Tal was repulsed by the complete lack of reverence demonstrated by his opponent’s dispassionate plan to initiate violence in this hallowed chamber.
The tense silence of waiting grew ever more oppressive until, seemingly oblivious to the pressure of unspoken questions, Tal stepped into the sanctified room’s center. When he spoke his deep voice demanded and received the attention of all.
“Lady Edith of Farleith Keep—” Tal announced in precise words and a carrying tone. “Has chosen to retreat into the holy life of a nun. Thus, there will be no betrothal today.”
“Where is my daughter?” A furious Lord James demanded while stomping forward to face the erstwhile groom with naught but a perilous hand’s-breadth of space betwixt them.
“Well beyond your reach,” Tal responded with a cold and mirthless smile.
“You have no right to interfere between a father and his daughter!” James snarled.
“’Struth,” Tal nodded but gritted out more between clenched teeth. “And never would I have done so had you not sought to use your daughter in a menacing plot against me and mine.”
Face gone dark purple and sputtering with rage, Lord James was a fair way toward exploding. He had come to this site for a ceremony never meant to occur, come with his own shocking scheme only to be met by news of a dastardly misdeed. But, he heatedly assured himself, the bitter acid of Taliesan’s wrong would merely make the fine nectar of the earl’s planned destruction taste the sweeter.
Though their surprise attack had been too soon revealed, Lord James was still convinced that his warriors would win out. Their aggression was expected, yet he believed greater power and a more certain victory would be achieved by his choice to see the battle fought in a severely limited space.
The fuming baron signaled his followers to immediately launch an assault focused on one man. He was confident that by the earl’s death they would conquer the whole of Westbourne.
Despite close confines which made a broadsword’s normal sweeping, slashing strokes near impossible, Tal’s greater skill easily deflected the barrage of blades almost instantly turned upon him. And yet he would gladly credit divine aid in putting an end to vile deeds wickedly committed in this sanctified chapel.
But more importantly, Tal proved himself the far superior tactician almost as soon as the clash of blade against blade commenced. The opponent whose strategy had included choosing a restricted battlefield was proven in serious error when Westbourne’s full garrison quickly arrived and trapped Lord James’s warriors within its tight confines.
Farleith weapons were confiscated and piled behind the altar where the priest had taken shelter during the fray. The invaders who’d thought to make short work of Taliesan and thus easily conquer Westbourne with few losses of their own were shamed by the haste with which they were disarmed and herded into a resentful group of captives.
But as Sir Alan started to prod the baron of Farleith toward the stairway which ended in murky dungeons, something shocking occurred.
While Tal stood on one side watching his victorious guardsmen finish their duty to subdue the defeated, a sharp blade suddenly arced from behind and bit painfully into his throat.
“Harm any man of Farleith,” Ulrich snarled, “and I swear your precious earl, your Lord Taliesan, will instantly die.”
Westbourne’s victorious cries were promptly hushed into a rumble of disgust for the traitorous knight who’d once been their captain. That ominous hum was punctuated only by stinging oaths of revenge as Sir Ulrich issued another order.
“Men of Farleith—” Though speaking to his new cohorts, Ulrich met the gaze of the knight who’d replaced him as guard captain, the foolishly softhearted Sir Alan. “First free your comrades and then precede my captive and me from this place where weakness is perilously valued above strength.”
The few invading warriors who had yet to be bound hastily released those who already were, before quickly reclaiming their weapons to depart with mocking grins and malicious taunts. Ulrich, knife still at the earl’s throat, backed from a chapel now crowded with near the whole of Westbourne’s garrison.
Once Lord James’s unexpectedly valuable ally was beyond the door with their prisoner, he motioned for several of his most trusted knights to approach. They were commanded to immediately block the chapel’s exit with trunks, chairs, any movable item from every chamber along this highest level’s central hallway.
In compliance with her lord’s demand, Vevina had remained in the solar with Lady Angwen. As the room where they waited was nearest the chapel, it was the first entered by Farleith’s intruding knights making them the first among castle inhabitants, save guardsmen, to know the day’s bleak outcome. When challenged by Vevina, the rude trespassers curtly announced Taliesan’s capture. Hysteria instantly swept over Angwen and her loyal companion had perforce to give the woman her full attention.
Ceri and her grandmother, huddling in the alcove fearfully near the chapel conflict had heard too well the frightening sounds of a battle fought in earnest—clashing blades, groans of exertion, and cries of pain. Thus, when the noise calmed to a dull thunder, Ceri had waited with ever increasing anxiety to learn the outcome.
Finally ominous footsteps were heard in the hallway—but no shouts of triumph. Ceri hastened to the door, carefully cracked it open, and peeked outside.
The reality of Ceridwen’s most horrifying fears approached as Taliesan was marched down the hall while Ulrich held a deadly sharp dagger to his throat. Blood oozed from the wound already inflicted. Ceri wanted to rush to Tal but dared not for fear that the dishonorable Ulrich would complete the assault by slicing her beloved’s throat open, forcing her to watch as his lifeblood drained away.
Ceri was terrified that once the brief period of Tal’s use to his captors as shield was past, they truly would take his life.
* * *
The lady of Castle Westbourne lay sprawled across the rich coverlet of her tester bed with none of her usual grace. Face buried in bedclothes bunched in clutching fingers, she quietly moaned in terror for her beloved son’s peril.
“Angwen, what ails you?” The words spoken from an open door held no shred of concern only disgust for time foolishly wasted.
Sitting bolt upright, the abruptly quiet lady glared toward the speaker of a question too familiarly phrased. It would be an insult from any among Westbourne’s inhabitants but from this aging woman long her enemy, it was far worse.
“You’re acting the weak, witless fool that we both know you are not.” Not serf but freeborn woman, Mabyn was not intimidated by her hostess’s position and marched boldly into the chamber. “If you responded like this—as a milksop—to honest losses suffered, then how can you dare blame me for your woes?”
Angwen’s shoulders squared and her chin tilted defiantly.
“What happened to the fiery princess I knew?” Mabyn demanded, hands firmly planted on broad hips. “Was she the real victim of your apparently endless complaints and unfounded accusations?”
“Milady—” Vevina softly called to the companion of near a lifetime as she moved to stand at her tactless mother’s side. “You must restore your composure and prepare to act in Lord Taliesan’s defense elsewise all will be lost.”
Suddenly aware of her disarray and embarrassed by this betrayal of weakness, Angwen rubbed dry the damp cheeks brightly rosed by emotion.
“Aye,” Angwen firmly assured her listeners. “I’ll be myself, the fiery princess turned countess, and prepare to act in my son’s defense. But where to begin … what actions can be taken?”
Seeing a flicker of the young princess in this stern lady of the castle, Mabyn reassured her. “Belike we will find one, if we search—calmly.”
Angwen gazed into the eyes of the wise woman of Llechu without either fear or resentful hate for the first time since she’d left her father’s princedom and journeyed to Westbourne.
“Surely—” Vevina quietly interposed. “The first step must be to await the demands Lord James will assuredly issue as a proposed exchange for ensuring the safety of our earl.”
“But while we wait—” Ceri spoke quietly from several paces behind the two older Welshwomen. “There will be time to consider any possible plans for Tal’s rescue.”
* * *
Though crowded with inhabitants gathered for the day’s first meal, the great hall of Westbourne Castle was abnormally silent this morning after the aborted betrothal and fiendish capture of Lord Taliesan. Their repast was finished, but the people lingered while a grim-faced Lady Angwen sat alone at the high table’s center and steadily watched the approach of an unwelcome visitor.
“Milady—” As the unkempt figure spoke in a thready, obsequious voice his open mouth revealed a tangle of crooked and discolored teeth. “I been sent to bring this to you.”
Along with this announcement the man roughly slapped a folded sheet of parchment down on the high table’s linen-covered surface directly in front of the lady of Westbourne.
In equal parts distaste for the messenger and dread of the item’s likely contents, Angwen hesitantly began to reach for the deceptively harmless sheet.
“Who are you?” The imperious woman demanded, still so loath to touch the delivered piece that she disdainfully motioned toward it instead. “And who gave you this?”
“I be Orm.” Beneath the lady’s fierce glare the uneasy man awkwardly shuffled. “But I don’t know the one what insisted I see it come to you.”
“Then, pray tell—” Angwen sneered. “How was it that you went to meet with this individual you claim not to know?”
“Didn’t go to him!” The denial’s fervor went far to prove its honesty. “Nor would I have met the toad, were it my choice.”
Skeptical, Angwen’s dark brows arched in dubious question.
“I were minding my own business, weren’t I? Just a free man toiling in his garden when of a sudden I were wickedly grabbed from behind, blindfolded, and dragged away.”
Distrust sharpened the probing gaze Angwen focused on the uninvited visitor.
“To meet their master, your captors must’ve taken you to a building of some kind,” Angwen persisted, determined to learn more from this peculiar stranger than the precious little she already had. “What did that building look like?”
“No building.” Greasy strands of lank hair fell forward as the unwilling messenger firmly shook his head. “When they peeled the wretched cloth from my eyes, I were in an unfamiliar forest glade (took horrible long to find my way back) and I were facing a man hefty enough to make a pair of me.”
With this description’s oblique confirmation of an already assumed fact, Angwen had no further excuse to delay in dismissing this creature and turning toward the the unpleasant item he’d brought.
Orm quickly departed, as glad to escape the castle as no doubt its intimidating lady was to be rid of him.
Despite a continuing reluctance, Angwen focused on the ominous delivery. As was true of all the women and most of the men among her Norman peers, she couldn’t read. Though it would be simple to summon the cleric responsible for castle records, she hesitated. Too many traitors had been revealed in their midst for her to easily trust. Moreover, the cleric was well known for his skill in cultivating the castle gossip vines. Until she knew what this parchment contained, Angwen deemed it best to guard the message’s privacy.
But Mabyn possessed such skills and had taught them to her daughter—likely granddaughter, too. For that reason as Angwen clutched the parchment and rose to her feet, she motioned for her Welsh companion to follow as she retired to the solar.
Vevina sat with her mother near the top of one of the hall’s two long lines of lower tables. As Vevina moved to slip away, Mabyn refused to be abandoned and trailed behind as her daughter led the way to obediently join their lady on the climb up stone steps.
While crossing the chamber to reach the corner stairwell, Angwen paused only to command that Ceridwen also join them.
Once the women were enclosed in the solar’s privacy and seated at its small table, Angwen dropped the missive to bare planks and jerked her hand back as if the dark marks on the sheet were poisonous snakes coiling to strike.
Angwen’s companions gave their full attention to the document. The parchment lacked an identifying seal, yet its never doubted source was unmistakable in the terse wording of its ultimatum.
Taliesan was alive but to keep him so, Lady Angwen as mistress of Westbourne had three days in which to either cede the whole of the fiefdom to King Stephen or prepare to receive her son’s dead body.
A further warning accompanied the ominous demand. Farleith had taken as captives serfs from Westbourne’s outlaying villages and farms. If any attempt were made to attack or lay siege to the Lord James’s keep, one by one they would be killed and placed on pikes lining its palisade wall.
Untrained for the tactics of war, still the women realized that the only option given was a fool’s choice since Westbourne was lost on either hand. Even if not immediately yielded to the king, once the fiefdom’s only male heir was killed, it would be leaderless and easily conquered.
Knowing her duty, a chastened Angwen led the way back down to the great hall where trestle tables had been cleared away but castle inhabitants remained, tensely waiting for news. The haughty Lady Angwen surprised her Welsh companions by requesting that they join her on the dais while she shared the contents of the recently delivered parchment with her people.
As news of the demanded surrender of Westbourne to King Stephen in exchange for the life of their earl spread across the hall, a deep rumble of frustrated defiance rose from the crowd. Not one among them would willingly see Lord Taliesan’s life forfeit yet the prospect of meekly surrendering was nearly as monstrous.
One harsh voice roared out above the rest. “I say we march at once and burn the wretch’s keep to ground.”
An immediate storm of disagreeing assertions overwhelmed even the rarely quiet hall.
More than one woman wailed, “Think of all the innocent captives they would slaughter.”
“Lord Tal would die.” Disgust for the fool who’d suggested such a risk coated the words.
“Not if we rescue him first!” A hotheaded guardsmen argued.
“How?” Another instantly demanded. “How when you know they’ll have their noble hostage, their prize, trussed and prepared for execution?”
“Quiet!” With the same talent for quiet command that Tal had recognized, Sir Alan took control of the chaos and moved to face the crowd grown belligerent. “Think rationally with your mind not your heart and never your resentment. As our earl cautioned, remember that the best way to ensure our foes’ victory is to do their work for them by fighting amongst ourselves.
“’Struth, Lord Tal is hostage and too many of Westbourne’s people are captive.” Alan’s stern gaze turned from one guardsman to the next. “It’s just as certainly a fact that if we attack without calm planning, our enemies will assuredly delight in carrying out their threats.”
Alan waited for the uproar to recede into strained murmurs before making sure that the hazards faced were comprehended by all.
“If the heartless execution of innocent captives fails to halt our onslaught, there is no doubt but that they’ll hold Lord Taliesan as the final shield—and gladly destroy him before our eyes.”
Ceri’s heart plummeted beneath the weight of graphically stated threats repeated by the knight standing below her position on the dais. Had she won her quest only to lose its heart to such dastardly evil?
Forcing her thoughts from vile images, Ceri rose from behind the high table, an unexpected action which instantly won the attention of all.
“As Sir Alan says—” Ceri’s steady voice carried throughout the vast chamber. “Our foes have made it abundantly clear that the act of going with force of arms to rescue our earl is doomed to a ghastly end.”
“However—” Ceri paused and drew a deep breath for courage to propose a scheme for victory suggested by Gran Mab the previous night. “What if those inside Farleith Keep are rendered helpless, even unconscious before Westbourne’s force arrives?”
Utter silence reigned. Even if she was a witch, this mysterious Welshwoman’s suggestion would be welcome … if it could be trusted … if it could be accomplished.
Lady Angwen recognized this as the moment for her to take on an important role which only she could play. She rose to stand at Ceridwen’s side and issue a firm order in her most commanding tone.
“Perform, without question, whatever instructions you are given by my three friends from Llechu—Ceridwen, Vevina, or Mabyn.”
Though startled to be claimed a friend, Ceri was relieved that the fiefdom’s lady had issued the necessary order and pleased by the prompt willingness to obey shown by those commanded.
The castle was soon emptied as a strange army of sorts flowed beyond bailey walls to sweep through the forests encircling tilled fields. Armed not with weapons but containers of all shapes and sizes, they searched for an often elusive prize.
At the end of a long day they returned exhausted but triumphantly bearing a small treasure-trove of tiny white berries that were deadly eaten en masse but whose juice, when added as mere droplets to other elixirs, induced a beneficial sleep.
The kitchens bustled with activity while, under the seneschal’s command and Mabyn’s careful directions, the process of reducing bitter berries to a colorless liquid began. Once that task was well under way Ceridwen slipped out in search of a young friend she knew could be trusted for an important mission.
“Thomas—” Ceri called from the opening of a deserted stall being cleaned by the boy. “For your lord’s sake, I have a task for you to undertake.”
“Whatever you wish, I will do gladly for either the earl or for you.” A spark of hope warmed the dejected boy’s gaze as he earnestly offered his help. Though the nasty hostage taking had occurred only the previous day, it seemed to him a bleak lifetime had passed.
“My aunt told me that you’ve already been to Grendel’s Tor?” Though a statement, Ceri posed it as a question and only continued after a tousled head nodded. “Go again during predawn light but wait concealed in forest gloom until you see my friend, Lloyd, arrive.”
It was a simple enough deed and Tom was thrilled to think that by so easy a chore he might be a part of his Lord’s rescue.
“What would you have me tell Lloyd? Or is he meant to give me a message for you?”
For nearly the first time since the previous day’s unhappy events, Ceri’s grin reappeared. “Probably both.”
Tom returned her grin and listened intently as she continued.
“Tell Lloyd about the preparation of our berry elixir and plan with him another meeting on the morrow. It’s then that you’ll take a covered vessel filled with that liquid to give him.”
When Ceri returned to the hall she was pleased that the first small amount of the desired potion had been produced. At Lady Angwen’s suggestion, the colorless, odorless liquid would be poured into the same delicate flask that Ceri had once been warned to handle with the special care due its great value.