Bedwyr led the way into Rhys’s hall, wondering what Arthur’s impressions of it were. He’d ask him later, though he doubted he’d need to prompt him. Arthur would be bursting with it, for Rhys’s hall was a larger, richer thing than Uthyr’s.
For three centuries Rhys and his forbears had run trade between Cymru and Africa, with stops everywhere between. The hall was filled with artifacts of that work so that color and texture stood out from the rafters to the floor. Carpets, lamps, metalwork, plus other fanciful things with no use but to look at. The chamber was large to begin with and yet every surface offered something intriguing.
A glance over his shoulder found Arthur gaping at it all. His eyes met Bedwyr’s briefly, and he flashed a grin before his gaze snagged on something in front of Bedwyr. Or someone, for he’d probably just spotted Rhys.
Rhys had spied them too, by Arthur’s hair most likely. His keen eyes watched their approach, taking in Bedwyr’s pinned sleeve and Elain by his side. This was it. They would see how their story held up.
When they reached Rhys’s chair, an ornately carved piece made of wood the color of a blackberry, Bedwyr bent his head. “Lord Rhys.”
“Bedwyr.” Rhys’s voice had the deep rasp he remembered. “I’m surprised to see you. I thought you’d be in your wedding moon.” His dark eyes flashed to Elain. “Are you here to present your bride?”
“Since you know her, my lord, no. But allow me to introduce my shieldmate. Rhys ap Rhodri, this is Arthur ap Matthias.”
Arthur gave a short bow, and Rhys’s eyes widened as he drew back up to his considerable height.
“A cub no more, I see.”
Arthur’s composure broke, and he gave Bedwyr an impatient glance.
Rhys chuckled. “Yes, lad, your reputation precedes you. You’ll be glad to know that lately it’s involved mainly your skill in battle. Your father-by-law boasted of it.”
A pang twisted Bedwyr’s gut. He was proud of Arthur, too—almost to the point of shouting about it—but once upon earlier days his father had boasted of him.
As if reading his thoughts, Rhys turned to him. “Not as much as he regaled us about you, son. To hear Uthyr tell it, you came back from the dead.”
The pang again but with an unfamiliar edge of gratitude. He thumped Arthur’s arm with his own. “Thanks to this one. He rehabilitated me.”
“And he was a right pain in the arse about it,” Arthur said.
Rhys grinned. “He’s Uthyr’s son. Of course he was a pain in the arse.” He turned to Gwen. “I imagine you can vouch for that logic.”
Gwen smiled and nodded. “Yes, my lord.”
Rhys leaned toward her. “Between you and me,” he said in a voice that reached every corner of the hall, “your father always boasted of you most.”
“Did he?”
“Your beauty, your intelligence, your practicality. I was certain when you finally appeared in my hall you would float into it on a cloud…or on the shoulders of your own personal war band.”
Gwen laughed, sounding much more relaxed than Bedwyr felt. “Sadly, I’ve arrived on foot. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“Never.” Rhys eyed Arthur, then Bedwyr, that keen gaze returning. “But you’ve just wed. Why are you here instead of burrowed down in your marriage beds? You do know what they’re for?”
A murmur of laughter rose around them.
Bedwyr took a breath to give the agreed-upon response, but Arthur spoke first.
“We’re here to offer our swords.”
A hush fell, and Rhys studied them. “Your swords belong to Uthyr.”
“We fight for Cymru. The mountains are quiet in winter. We can be of more use here.”
It had seemed a credible argument on the mountain track, but now that they stood in this great hall under the scrutiny of more than a hundred pairs of eyes, Bedwyr was sure of nothing.
After a long silent stretch, Rhys sat back. “As it happens, your timing is excellent.” He looked past Bedwyr’s shoulder and flicked his fingers at someone there.
Bedwyr turned to find a man walking toward them. He was about Bedwyr’s height, pale-skinned with dark hair, and his glare could have run them through. He stopped before Rhys, giving him a nod that appeared painful in its tightness.
Rhys looked between them, then said to Bedwyr, “Have you never met?”
Bedwyr looked again at the other man, who scowled at him. “No.”
“What an honor I have!” Rhys declared, a mischievous curl playing about his lips. “Bedwyr ap Uthyr, meet your cousin, Agravain ap Lot.”
Surprised, Bedwyr turned to the man again. He scarcely remembered his aunt Morgawse, had only a vague memory of black hair that matched his father’s. She’d married Lot when Bedwyr was small, and left for what his father called the icy arsehole of the land. Or maybe Uthyr had been referring to his brother-by-law, for though this Agravain had Morgawse’s dark hair, everything else about him was chilly, and that was being kind.
Bedwyr held out his hand. “Well met, cousin.”
Agravain stared at it but made no move to grip his arm.
Rhys looked from one of them to another, his shrewd eyes seeing more than his own, Bedwyr would have wagered. “I’m surprised you didn’t attend the weddings, you being family and in the vicinity.”
“I was protecting your border,” Agravain muttered. “As you know.”
“No word of congratulations?”
Agravain gave Bedwyr a derisive glance that took in Arthur at the same time, then said something in a tongue Bedwyr didn’t recognize. Could have been a blessing or a curse.
Gwen stepped forward and kissed Agravain’s cheek. “Thank you, cousin.”
The disconcerted look on the man’s face was enough to make Bedwyr want to embrace his sister.
“Well,” Rhys said to Agravain, “I’m happy to announce you’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted. I’m sending these two back to the border with you.”
Bedwyr’s attention snapped back to Rhys. “Patrol?”
“Most likely, unless the Saxons grow restless.”
Agravain scoffed. “You expect me to play nurse to a cripple?”
Elain’s grip jerked where she held Bedwyr’s arm, and Arthur looked ready to unleash a volley of retort. Bedwyr gave him a warning look. They had no leverage here but what they could bring to a skirmish. He turned to Rhys. “We’re glad to be of service.”
“I trust you can make yourselves useful?”
“We can. We will.”
“Good—”
“I’ll not play nursemaid,” Agravain growled again.
“Correct,” Rhys said. “You’ll play warrior, as you’re meant to be doing right now. As your father sent you to me to do. Drinking my ale and fucking my wife’s whores were not part of the agreement.”
“Our armor needed mending.”
“How comes the repair of the northerners’ armor?” Rhys called out.
“Finished,” came the reply from within the crowd.
Rhys sat back in his chair. “How fortunate. Gather your provisions, lads, and bid your farewells. You’ll ride the daylight.”
That eager to be rid of them, was he? Fine. Bedwyr could scarcely wait to put Rhys’s sharp gaze several thousand paces behind them. Turning, he found Elain looking at him expectantly.
Right. Leaning in, he kissed her, giving it a few seconds for credibility. When he broke away, her breath was warm on his cheek, her ear at his lips. “Protect her with your life.”
He pulled back, cementing it with a stern look.
Elain nodded, then smiled. “I’ll miss you too, husband.”
She turned away to kiss Arthur’s cheek, and Gwen stepped in to embrace Bedwyr.
She was a woman now and strong, but she felt small against him. “You can still go home.”
Gwen kissed his cheek. “You can still fuck off.”
“Brat.”
“Beast.”
He held her tight. “Be safe, Gwen.”
“You too, Bed.” She pulled back and gave him a cheeky smile. “Don’t let my husband do anything stupid.”
Gwen watched Bedwyr and Arthur melt into the crowd in the hall. Two of the people she loved most in the world, heading out into it. The sight filled her with enough pride to keep the fear at bay.
The warm arm that slipped through hers helped too.
“Come. Rhys’s wife will tell us where we can sleep.”
The woman in question was in the hall but not seated next to Rhys. Instead, she stood next to the ale casks, haranguing a man who, in her opinion, had had enough. When she caught sight of Elain, she left off barking at the man and turned toward them.
When they’d come within sight of the settlement’s largest structure late that afternoon, Gwen hadn’t even tried to mask the wonder in her voice. “Rhys lives in a palace.”
Elain had looked sidewise at her.
“What?”
“That’s not Rhys’s house,” she said. “That’s the brothel.”
When Gwen considered it again, Elain had only chuckled.
“Fucking pays.”
In many ways, Caron was unremarkable—medium build, mousy hair, a face neither beautiful nor harsh. Yet she was a force. Not in size, for she stood eye to eye with Gwen and had to raise those eyes to meet Elain’s. No, it was something in her bearing. Caron was a woman who knew her strength and her worth. She guarded the ale casks as if she knew no man in the hall would defy her. Gwen suspected they wouldn’t, and not because she was Lord Rhys’s wife.
Elain brought them before her. “Mistress Caron.”
Caron nodded. “Elain.”
“This is Gwenhwyfar, my sister-by-law.”
“I saw you come in.” Caron’s gaze swept Gwen from head to toe and back again. “Welcome,” she said, though it didn’t sound precisely as if she meant it.
“The journey was wearying. May we beg a place to sleep?”
Caron swept her arm to take in the hall. “Any bit of ground you like. Warmer over by the hounds.”
It was a far cry from the curtained sleeping space she’d grown up with, or the chamber she’d shared with Elain for one night. But this was what Gwen had wanted—something different.
“Could we trouble you for something quieter?” Elain asked.
“Very well,” Caron said. “Take the southwest corner loft. I trust you remember how to get there?”
Elain led her from the hall and across a thatched walkway to the brothel. The great building was longer and taller even than Rhys’s hall, comprising at least two levels. Elain pulled her along a series of passages, each narrower than the last. Beating on her senses were the sounds and smells of the business taking place in the curtained stalls they passed. Moans and cries, grunts and shouts, and woven throughout, the pungent, competing scents of body musk, lamp oil, and something that made the air hazy with spice.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Incense. You’ve never smelled it?”
The question might have made her feel self-conscious and unsophisticated, but Elain’s tone was gentle. “No.”
Elain took her hand. “They say it arouses the blood. Mostly it just masks other smells.”
She led Gwen through the narrowest passage she could have imagined, scarcely wide enough to walk without turning her shoulders sideways. At the far end stood a ladder leading up through another floor. Elain climbed up first, before reaching down to hand Gwen up.
She emerged into a tiny space made even smaller by the sharp angle of the roof. A bare mattress took up most of the floor, its seams gaping in a few places, exposing ticking stale enough she could smell it.
“I’m sorry,” Elain said softly.
Gwen turned to her. “Why?”
One sharp shoulder hitched. “This isn’t what I wish I could provide.”
Gwen smoothed her hands down Elain’s arms. “But you have provided.”
“A dirty corner off a rat passage.”
Gwen stepped close—or closer, as the room forced proximity to begin with—and put her arms around Elain’s waist. “We have a roof over our heads and something more than planks or bare ground to sleep on. And it’s quiet.” From somewhere below, a woman’s high-pitched cries drifted into the space, and Gwen smiled. “Relative to the hall.”
“I wish it were more,” Elain said. “I’d do anything for you.”
Gwen’s heart seemed to bloom like a flower in her chest. “I know it. I’ll do my best not to take undue advantage.” Tipping her chin up, she kissed her.
She’d meant it to comfort Elain, but if she were honest with herself, she needed some comfort, too. Everything felt foreign here, still and humid outside with low mist off the river but raucous and strange-smelling inside. But Elain was strong, and she knew this place. They would be all right. Gwen opened the kiss and breathed in Elain’s generous response, and she tried not to feel cowardly for needing the reassurance.
They set about spreading their bedding over the poor mattress. Tucking stray bits of ancient straw back into it, Gwen felt a spark of self-satisfaction. She was traveling, something her father hadn’t allowed her to do much. And she was out from under his thumb. And she was going to share this space with Elain. If she had her way, they would destroy whatever seams remained on this mattress.
Though perhaps not tonight. Elain dressed herself and her hair simply, which made it all the easier to see the dark smudges beneath her eyes. A strong as she was, she’d probably carried most of the worry for both of them.
But they’d met Rhys, the boys were off to serve, and she and Elain had a bed. A good night’s rest would be the thing.
Though Gwen felt much too awake with the possibilities of this place to sleep anytime soon. “I’m going to find a night pail.”
“I’m sorry, I forgot.” Elain started for the ladder, but Gwen pulled her back.
“I’ll find one. I’m capable.”
“I know you are, it’s only—”
Gwen quieted her with another kiss. “I’ll come straight back, I promise.”
The narrow passage below was dim but navigable, thanks to lamplight that shone over the tops of the heavy curtains on the whores’ stalls. The noises from those spaces were louder here and varied enough that someone more exacting could probably catalog them. Someone like Master Philip, though Gwen smiled at the thought of her old teacher in this place, scratching away on a scroll with his goose-feather quill to capture them. Laughter, loud and soft; grunting and groaning, of course; and thumps and squeals and the occasional growl. She needn’t have tiptoed but felt the inclination anyway, not wanting to miss a single sound.
The moans of the women caught her ear most often and tugged at her attention. She’d heard the like from her father’s bedchamber often enough. She’d heard them from her brother’s chamber too, when Elain had made them. The first time that had happened, she hadn’t known it was a ruse, and her envy had made her chest hurt. Elain had soothed that bruise the next day when she admitted to faking the sounds—that Bedwyr hadn’t even touched her.
But then Gwen had wondered: had Eira’s cries ever been false? Had she dared do such a thing in Uthyr’s bed? What about the women before her? And did he know the difference? Did any man?
The sounds of pleasure that surrounded her like a cloak here—were any of them real? Elain had grown up here, with these sounds and more. Gwen would simply ask her on the morrow.
They had a new life, after all, with no secrets between them.