| |
––––––––
Nan was staring at him, dazed.
“Prince?” she echoed, as though she had never heard the word before.
“Tywysog Aderinyth,” Lady Eluned supplied, giving the word in Welsh as though that would clarify the matter. Her hand never left Nan’s shoulder and her eyes never left Gryff until she said, “Forgive me, my lord,” and sank into a very deep courtesy.
“Nan,” he began, and stopped. He did not know how to continue. She looked bewildered at Lady Eluned’s show of deference, then looked back at him with disbelief.
“All have believed you dead these five years, Prince Gruffydd,” Lady Eluned informed him when she rose. “All but my son.” She clasped her hands lightly before her and turned her eyes to her lord husband for a brief moment. The ladies who had been embroidering near the window until they had heard the word prince now stood gawking at him, and she addressed them. “We wish to be private. Go now. You will say naught of what you have heard here, or I will know of it.”
Nan flinched a little at the words, and looked as though she took them as a command for herself. She had even lifted her foot in preparation to walk away, but Lady Eluned’s hand came gently to her shoulder again. Protection. Nan was under Lady Eluned’s protection.
“The abbey was your hiding place,” said Robin in a voice of discovery when the other ladies had gone. “The abbey in the wilds that burned.”
“I feared for my life.” He said it to Nan, who was staring somewhere in the vicinity of his chest. “I feared Edward would imprison me.” He saw confusion crease her brow at the name, and said, “King Edward.”
Lord Robert spoke somewhere behind him. “It was not an unreasonable fear. But how came you to know Nan?”
Beauty and blood, a hundred miles and more from this place. He could still see her cutting the rope that bound him, handing him bread. “She saved my life,” he said, still looking only at her. “You saved me.”
“The thieves that attacked on the road out of Morency, when Sir Gerald was injured,” Robin dutifully explained to the others. Nan had apparently told him everything last night. “They captured him when the abbey burned.”
“What fortune that you were spared, and could hide your identity for a journey the breadth of England,” observed Lady Eluned. There seemed to be a barely restrained anger in her, pulling her voice tight.
“If not the king, my bastard brother would see me dead.” He must explain it. If only Nan would turn her eyes up to him. “I must be a nameless Welshman, to live.”
They all seemed frozen in place, waiting for something – waiting for Nan, to do or say anything. But she was as still and silent as stone.
Lady Eluned let out a breath, too emphatic to be a sigh, and said, “We must discuss what is to be done. Sit you down, my lords, and I will call for refreshment.”
As though she had been waiting for the words, Nan dipped her knee quickly and whispered, “I will see to it, my lady.” She fled from the room, as swiftly as she had run to it only minutes ago.
Gryff stared at the door where she had disappeared, wanting to go after her but knowing he must not. He knew every line of her body, every wordless sign that told him she did not want him to follow. Later, he would find her and explain. It was only a name. It meant nothing. So long as it did not kill him, it was only an inconvenient name.
“Robin.” Lord Robert’s voice was low. “Be sure we are not disturbed here. And go to her.”
Gryff watched Robin leave, fighting against the jealousy that sprang up to know her friend would be welcome when he was not. But that could not matter now. He forced his attention back to this moment – this dangerous moment when he stood under the roof of two of the highest nobles of King Edward’s court, and they knew who he was. It was an unwelcome feeling, to slip back into the role of hostage prince and face all the political maneuverings that must go with it. But he must, if he was to survive.
Instinct told him that Lady Eluned’s opinion mattered more in this. His father had known her a little and had believed she was deeply sympathetic to the Welsh cause, that she despised King Edward. But Gryff’s father was forever looking for allies. Will had said his mother was proud to be Welsh, but was loyal to the king.
Gryff finally turned to face her, and found her looking at him with outrage.
“You fool,” she seethed. Her fury filled the room, so forceful that he almost took a step back. “You have bedded her.”
He grit his teeth and glared at her, equally outraged at this presumption. The gall of her, as though she had any right to know his intimate affairs. But she did not quail beneath his look as any other mere mortal would.
“Do you deny it?” she snapped.
He stood to his full height and curled his lip in scorn as he looked down at her. “How do you dare to –”
“Oh I dare, my lord prince, for I do not say lightly that she is under my protection.” Her color was high, her fists clenched. “Knowing the king would wish every royal Welsh line ended, knowing your own brother would murder you in hopes of your inheritance, still you took her to your bed.” Her voice had risen almost to a shout, her scorn easily outpacing his. She looked as though she might strike him. “What think you such a king or such a brother would do if you have put a babe in her belly? If your life is forfeit, what then is the life of your child or of the woman who bears it? They would hold her life as nothing, you fool.”
Now she was shouting, and it was the only reason he could hear her above the rush of blood in his ears. The words seemed to cut into him, sharpened by undeniable truth. God forgive him. He had not thought of it. Not once.
“Even believing the king would see you and all your line wiped from the earth, you could not control yourself,” she spat. “I say it is a murderous lust in you, my lord, for you have risked her very life only for your pleasure. Did you not think even once of the consequence? Rhodri would put her to the sword as you watch, did he think she might carry your son, he would not suffer her to live –”
She stopped abruptly. Her husband had come to stand near to her and put his fingers lightly on her wrist. Only that soft, discreet touch, and the whisper of her name, and she halted her tirade. Her breath came fast, her jaw clamped tight as she tore her angry gaze from Gryff and looked to Lord Robert.
“Young love is heedless,” he said, his voice as gentle as his touch as he looked steadily at her. “Nor has it any care for danger, nor any thought of death. Surely we must forgive the recklessness of young lovers.”
Her face softened, the fury fading as he spoke. They looked at each other a long moment, his hand on her sleeve, before she nodded in assent. She stepped back and turned away to the window, but not before raking another scathing glance across Gryff.
Now Lord Robert stood alone before him and he felt like a boy again, back in his earliest years when his father’s silent disapproval was so unbearable he would rather die than endure it. The shame seemed to suffocate him. But the shame was nothing to the horror of thinking that Nan might bear his child and be hunted for it. That he may have cursed her to his own fate – it was torment beyond anything the king might do to him.
“Sit you down.” Lord Robert nodded to a bench near the hearth. When Gryff did not move, he said, “You look as if you will fall over do you not sit, boy, I will carry you there if I must.”
His words acted as a bracing slap in the face. Boy, he said – not prince, not lord – and spoke to him as a child. The light contempt and lack of deference was so typically Norman that it had long since ceased to offend. It almost made him nostalgic. He sat.
“In faith, you may be thankful we know you did not force her. Any man who had tried would not yet have all his limbs.” He said it as he walked to a table in the corner where there were cups and wine. He poured as he spoke. “Be more thankful still that Edward does not think you a traitor.”
Gryff looked at the cup of wine held out to him. He held his breath as he took it. The court, the king, power, games – he was back in a world where trust was a luxury few could afford, so he waited until Lord Robert drank before he put his own cup to his lips. The wine itself left him speechless for a moment. He had forgotten how delicious it could be, how well the wealthy drank and ate.
He swallowed it, and asked, “What does he think me, then, if not a traitor? Has he sought me these many years?”
“Aye, at first.” Lord Robert sat across from him. “But you did not reappear to fight against him, nor has there been any whisper of you in Wales. And so he is inclined to agree with Will, that you are a loyal subject who fled in fear of your life from a greedy brother. Or that you are dead.”
None of it meant that Gryff was safe, that the king would not lock him away or worse. This was what it meant to have the blood of princes running in his veins.
“I would let him think me dead.”
He heard only the hard beat of his own heart in the silence that followed. It was presumptuous of him to even imply that this man, a stranger, might abandon honor for his sake. But it was a necessary part of this world, the continual assessment of potential allies and enemies.
“Hear me well, Gruffydd ab Iorwerth. I am a loyal servant of the king.” There was a hint of apology in Lord Robert’s face. “He will have truth from me, and know you live. Even if it means your death, I must tell him – though I think it will not be so dire.”
Gryff nodded, glad to know exactly what he could expect. “I mean you no insult. I have lived in the wilds these many years, and know little of king and court. In faith, I have had little news since Wales fell.”
“As I will give the king naught but truth, so too do I give it to you, and whatever news you seek. What would you know?”
Gryff took another careful sip of the wine, beating back the tide of questions that swelled in him. Better to learn what he could now, from this man who had no reason to twist the truth.
“Aderinyth.” He closed his eyes briefly, bracing himself. He had always known, in his heart, that he might never go back – that there might be nothing to go back to. “What has Edward done to my people?”
“It goes hard in Wales, but Aderinyth is spared the very worst of it. The greatest wealth cannot be reached, for the falconers keep their secrets well. Only a dozen nesting places have the English discovered, and none of them the white gyrfalcons. Your people hold the knowledge hostage to good effect, despite all efforts to prise it from them.”
A wave of relief came over Gryff, to know there was not the same devastation in Aderinyth as had been rumored in the rest of Wales. His breath loosed, and he brought the cup to his lips again.
“They killed Philip Walch,” said Eluned softly from her place by the window, and he felt it like a stab to his heart. “He would not tell them. He did say that he swore a vow, as his father had done, and his father’s father before him, that none but the prince and his falconers would ever know the nesting places. They hanged him, and three others before they saw the vow would not be broken no matter how many falconers died.”
His knuckles had turned white where they gripped the cup. The female is the fiercer creature, he heard Philip say to him. It was true. But it was men who had murdered him, and men who had sworn him to a secrecy that killed him. And for what? Nests and birds. Wealth, pride, and a king’s vanity.
He began to understand a little, what it might mean to have enough hate in his heart to burn down the world entire.
But he could also hear what his father had said so often, what Philip had taught him, too: To rule well, you must learn what it is to be a servant to one who serves you. He had fled, and Philip died because Gryff had not been there to serve his people. Hate would not change that, nor would it absolve him of his own transgression.
“Who rules there?” Gryff asked. The love he had for the place, that he had denied and hidden and tried to contain for so long, came vividly back to life, a ferocious protectiveness. Some cruel new lord was likely seated in his father’s hall even now, hanging stubborn falconers and looking over his spoils of war. “What new barony has been made of it?”
“None.” Lord Robert poured more wine. “Rhodri makes a claim for it, of course. Will has argued against him these many years. He has said to Edward that yours is the rightful claim, and you a true and loyal servant to the crown. Will argues that it is Welsh law, not Norman, that would allow a bastard to inherit – and that Edward should not rule with Welsh law.”
Gryff snorted. “Ever has Edward chosen the law that serves him best.” It was the cause of most Welsh grievances against the king. “Will has developed a silver tongue indeed, if he has held him off so many years.”
“Is not commonly known, but when Edward divided the conquered lands among his barons, he did agree to Will’s suggestion: to keep Aderinyth free of rule for five years, in case you should return to claim it. And here you are.”
They stared at each other while the words sank in. Lord Robert was thoughtful and assessing. Gryff was stunned. Five years from the division of Wales – that would be only months from now, in the spring of next year.
“He would...” Gryff struggled for words, astonishment making his tongue slow. “I have only to claim it?”
A sound of derision came from Lady Eluned, who still stood at the window.
“You cannot know Edward well, do you think it so simple,” she said. “There is no knowing what game he will play or what dance he will lead you. And at the end of it, you may have your lands or you may not. He holds all the power. It will be as it pleases him, not you.”
Gryff looked to Lord Robert for confirmation of this grim declaration, feeling the hope of his home slipping away again.
“Never would I gainsay my lady wife in such a matter as this one. But I think me she will agree that Will is best positioned to know Edward’s true mind.” He paused, and Lady Eluned inclined her head, conceding this as truth. “Even now, Will is at court.”
“So too is Rhodri there.” Lady Eluned looked at him from her place by the window. Whatever she sought in Gryff’s face, she seemed not to find it. Her cool gaze moved to her husband. “Does he know the true prince lives, Rhodri would not waste an instant to find him and see him dead.”
Lord Robert nodded and looked into his cup, considering. Gryff had lately learned to hear words that went unspoken, to judge a mood and a moment by more than what was said. Lord Robert was straightforward, trustworthy, as cheerful and warm as Gryff had first perceived. Lady Eluned was none of those things, and though her knowledge was greater it seemed she was now giving a decision to her husband: the decision of what exactly to do with him. Gryff did not know whether to be glad of this or to despair.
“Is there no one else who knows you live?” asked Lord Robert finally.
“Only one man, and I will not name him.” If he could do nothing else, he could keep Hal safe and free of all this. “He is no lord, and he will keep the secret well.”
He told them then, of how he had been smuggled out of Lancaster’s keep by a man now dead, and how at the abbey only Brother Clement had known his identity, and he was dead too. Gryff had thought it an advantage, that it would allow him to begin a new and nameless life of his own choosing. And it was an advantage – it had kept him alive. But as he told it, he could only see a long trail of broken ties and lost lives stretched out behind him. Somehow at the end of it, he still lived.
Robin appeared with a tray of food. He said not a word. He only set it down and left, but not before giving a look to Lady Eluned that seemed sorrowful, another to Gryff that seemed accusatory. As he walked out, he snapped his fingers at Fuss, who had been sitting unnoticed at Gryff’s feet. The dog looked up at him as if asking approval before answering Robin’s call and bounding out of the room.
When he had gone, they spoke at length of what transpired in Wales, of who had been given lands to rule there and why. Lord Robert told him who held power at court, which favorites held sway with the king and the matters that were most pressing. He had a clear distaste for the intrigues of court, and despite her aptitude Lady Eluned seemed to have no interest in it. She stood quiet at the window, listening while the food grew stale and her husband related only the most necessary information without embellishment.
But at the end of it, Lord Robert sat back and said, “I ask my lady wife what course she thinks best. We must tell Edward you live, and deliver you to him. But I would send word to Will in secret, and let him choose what is safest to tell the king and when.”
“Safest for Prince Gruffydd, you mean,” observed Lady Eluned, a pinch to her lips. “But I consider what is safest for you, my lord husband. There is risk in secrecy. Edward will not like to learn of this too late.”
Lord Robert gave a reassuring smile, the kind that only cocksure fools or justifiably confident men gave. “I put it in Will’s hands, and he is a trusted favorite at court. If he delays in telling the king, I do not doubt he will have ready explanation for it.”
She looked like she might protest, but did not. She only gave a short nod and said, “William will know the risk, and handle it well. We will give the message to Robin to carry, and I will choose the words with care.”
Lord Robert agreed and then looked at Gryff. “I will trust you not to flee again, and promise you my protection as long as you are in my household. Rhodri would be hard pressed to reach you here and do we stay alert, there is naught to fear of him.”
He stood, saying he would show him to the chamber that would be made ready for him, and Gryff only briefly considered the possibility of fleeing in the night. To do so would be worse than foolish – it would make him seem guilty in some way, and they would hunt him down soon enough. If not the king’s men, then Rhodri himself would find him.
Even those practical realities were nothing to the new realization that pressed in upon him: that if he ran now, he could only keep running, and forsake Aderinyth. What a child he had been, an impulsive boy who had thought only of his own life when he fled, and in the years since had thought only of his own longing to return. And while he feared for himself and dreamt of home, his people suffered and died.
They called him a prince, and so he must act as one. There would be no more running. It was time and past that he face his fate, no matter how cursed it may be, just as all other princes of his land had done.
It was only on his way out of the room, as they passed the window where Lady Eluned stood looking out, that he finally asked her. He knew she would know.
“My mother did intend to go to the sisters at Cairusk.” It had comforted him to think of her there, knowing how greatly she preferred her prayers even to her family. He used to think she only waited for her husband to die, so that she might retreat behind a cloister’s walls.
“She is there. She is happy to live much removed, from what little I have heard of her.” Lady Eluned seemed strangely subdued. “Full well will it soothe her to know she has a child who lived.”
There was no condemnation in it at all, but he felt damned by the words. Another sin to tally, that he had let his mother wonder and worry about his fate.
“My brothers,” he said. “My father.” He saw her close her eyes briefly, almost as in a silent prayer. “I would know how they died, and where they are interred.”
It was Lord Robert who answered.
“Your father fell in battle, an arrow to the neck and a quick death. Aiden too was wounded and died quickly, a blow to the head.” Here he put a hand on Gryff’s shoulder, firm and bracing. “Owain was captured and imprisoned, but fell ill within a fortnight and died before he could be taken to the king for judgement.”
Gryff almost asked what the illness was, but decided it didn’t matter. It might have been poison sent by Rhodri, or only the flux, or a common sweating sickness. If the illness had not killed him, the king likely would have. Traitors to the crown did not meet happy fates, even if they were only boys.
“He was buried in Malmesbury, and your father and Aiden in a small churchyard near where they fell.” It was Lady Eluned. She did not turn to him, but looked out over the fields and sky as she spoke. “I discovered the place, and two years ago was granted leave by the Church to move their bones to Aderinyth. They rest there now, in the valley where your ancestors are laid.”
Gryff looked at her profile, at the lift of her chin and the press of her mouth, at all the things she did not say. It was her doing, all of it, learning how they had died and going to such lengths to return them home. He had never thought of her as anything more than Will’s mother – wife to a Marcher lord, clever and powerful, not to be trifled with. But now he saw she was more than that. She was Welsh. She loved, and lost. She understood it, at least this part of it.
He bowed deeply to her, in the way his father had taught him he must only bow to someone the equal of a prince, as he had only ever bowed to his king.
“My thanks to you, lady, for the honor you have shown them.” He said it in Welsh, and the formal words came more easily than he would have guessed. “For this I will ask God’s blessings on you with every breath unto my last, and hold you in my memory as dearly as my own family. Only say what you would have of me in return for the kindness you have done, and it is yours.”
She turned to him then. He could feel her gaze on the top of his bowed head for a long and thoughtful moment.
“I do not do what is right for the approbation of princes – or of kings or lords or peasants in the field,” she said. “I honor those who are deserving of my honor, be they high or low. And that is what I would ask of you, Prince Gruffydd. It will not be an easy request to grant. You will see.”
He rose, and she turned back to her window, leaving him to wonder what she saw when she looked out onto the world.
