| |
Dublin, Ireland
Last days of August, 1148
Day One
Gwen
––––––––
Gwen fell to her knees on the dock, thankful beyond reckoning to be on dry land again—and heedless of the seawater that soaked the wooden boards and her plain brown dress. She had a better dress, a blue one, to wear tonight for the welcome feast, and a brand new one in a gorgeous green for the wedding day itself. Maybe, if she could be that careless of something she owned, she would pass this dress on to someone who needed it rather than face wearing it again, even for the return journey, which at the moment didn’t bear thinking about.
Gareth crouched beside her, rubbing her back. “Give it a few breaths. You should start to feel better soon.”
Gwen obeyed, taking in a deep breath that brought her the scents of wet wood, algae, and salt. She’d come to Dublin, not of her own accord, five years earlier and remembered this smell that seemed peculiar to Dublin. With three thousand souls living cheek by jowl here, the city ought to have smelled more offensive. But there was always a breeze in Dublin, especially near the water, as they were, which made the city smell cleaner than it should, like the sea when the wind was up.
“I’m already starting to feel better.” She looked up at her husband. “We may have to live permanently in Ireland, my love. How am I going to make that trip again?”
“Don’t think about it. Perhaps one of the healers here has a better remedy for your nausea than any had to offer you in Wales. This is a city of seafarers after all.”
“Which probably means all of them are better sailors than I am!”
“Don’t be so sure. I imagine many a Dane has been embarrassed to admit he doesn’t feel the call of the sea and sought a way to disguise his sickness.” Gareth kissed the top of her head. “Your color is starting to return.”
As she took in another breath, Gwen realized he was right. For the first time since she set foot in the boat the previous morning, she didn’t feel like she was going to vomit. She even managed a few sips of water from the skin Gareth gave her. Various people had told her over the years that if only she were to sail more often, her seasickness would abate, which made her feel as if they thought her inability to manage sailing without vomiting was somehow her own fault. It hadn’t escaped her notice that such claims were never made by people who actually suffered from seasickness.
What was her own fault was getting on the boat in the first place, even knowing what it would be like. At least she wasn’t pregnant like Evan’s wife, Angharad, which had precluded her from coming at all. Gwen had been bound and determined to attend the wedding, regardless of the personal cost.
But that was over for now, and she allowed Gareth to help her to her feet. Their daughter, Tangwen, now a precocious three and a half, had disembarked as well, followed by their new nanny, Marged, holding nine-month-old Taran. While their servants who had traveled with them, Beric and Sian, saw to the luggage, Gwen’s adoptive son Llelo bounded down the dock. Llelo’s brother, Dai, now squire, servant, and general underling to all six of Prince Hywel’s Dragons at once, had sailed in Prince Hywel’s ship. At sixteen and fourteen respectively, the two boys had become men and embarked on their chosen pathways. Though, as Gwen knew from her own life, only God knew to what end.
Godfrid, bless his heart, had known what the crossing of the Irish Sea was going to do to Gwen and had planned accordingly. He’d sent a ship to collect Gareth and Gwen, sail across the Irish Sea, and when they reached Dublin, to dock several slips down from Prince Hywel’s boat, which even now was gliding expertly into place. That was where Godfrid, Conall, their men, and a small crowd of onlookers had gathered to greet the travelers. Only two of the Dragons, Steffan and Aron, had sailed with Gareth and Gwen, while the rest had found berths on Hywel’s boat.
With luck, Gwen herself would be entirely ignored until she had a chance to catch her breath and change her appearance to one that was more acceptable for the wife of Prince Hywel’s seneschal. With his elevation in status, Gareth had become a lord and she a lady. It was daunting for the daughter of a bard, no matter how renowned. Godfrid had asked that Gwen and Hywel sing at their wedding, and Hywel had composed a song specifically for the two of them to sing together. For once, it was a love song that ended well. Fortunately, Gwen had three days to remember how to be a performer again.
Gwen was quite nervous as well about meeting Godfrid’s wife-to-be, Caitriona, and she wasn’t too sorry to see that Cait hadn’t come to the dock while Gwen was in such a state. At first, when Gwen had heard Godfrid was getting married, she’d worried about the woman who’d finally managed to bring him to the altar. Abbot Rhys’s description of Cait’s wit and courage—and the fact that she was Conall’s sister—had left Gwen breathing a little easier. But still, she would be sorry if they didn’t end up friends.
Away down the dock, Godfrid greeted Prince Hywel with great ceremony and gestured that he should walk with him to the palace, which, if memory served, lay in the southeastern corner of the city. That was where Godfrid’s brother, Brodar, the new King of Dublin, would be waiting to greet them—along with Diarmait, the King of Leinster and Dublin’s overlord, who just happened also to be Cait and Conall’s uncle. Cait wasn’t quite a princess, but for the brother of the King of Dublin, she was more than close enough.
Gwen could just make out Conall, in large part hidden by the Danish prince’s bulk, standing amongst the greeters, as befitting the representative to Dublin from the throne of Leinster. Both Conall and Godfrid were dressed in finery: Conall in a somewhat austere red and black and Godfrid in blue and gold to match his eyes and hair.
This afternoon, after the travelers had been given an opportunity to bathe, change, and rest, they would attend a feast held in their honor. All this Gwen knew because Godfrid had laid out the itinerary in a letter he’d sent with the captain of the ship. Godfrid’s wedding to Caitriona was in four days’ time, and he wanted everything to be perfect. If anything, he was overmanaging the situation, which was a side of him Gwen had never seen before. The Godfrid she knew best was full of humor and enthusiasm, in between bouts as one of the fiercest warriors Gareth had ever met. Gwen was looking forward to seeing him as a doting husband.
Everyone from Gwen’s ship deliberately held back to allow the royal retinue time to leave the dock. But—really to nobody’s surprise—Godfrid couldn’t maintain the formal façade, even for the time it took to reach the city gate. He glanced back, spied Gareth and Gwen, and reversed course. His long legs ate up the hundred feet between them, and before Gwen knew it, she’d been lifted off her feet in a bear hug. Godfrid set her down somewhat more decorously than he’d picked her up, before enveloping Gareth in a similarly effusive embrace.
“My friends!” Godfrid’s voice bellowed out from his barrel of a chest, to be heard all across the waterfront. “It’s been too long.”
Then, instantly moderating his volume and tone, he crouched in front of Tangwen, who was looking up at him with big brown eyes, and poked her gently in the tummy.
“And who is this gorgeous girl?” He spoke in accented Welsh, but understandable enough to everyone in the party, including Tangwen.
Tangwen’s hands went to her belly. “Tangwen.”
“I’m very pleased to see you again, Tangwen. You probably don’t remember me, but I remember you!”
Then, melting the hearts of everyone watching, Tangwen reached out a hand and tugged on the point of Godfrid’s blond beard, prompting a chuckle from the big Dane. He touched her nose gently with his finger and then rose to his feet, his other hand resting gently atop Tangwen’s brown curls. His eyes went to Gareth. “You will be beating the men off with sticks in a few years.”
“I won’t be limited to sticks, my friend.” Gareth rolled his eyes. “You are joining the ranks of married men. It won’t be long before you have a daughter of your own.”
“God willing!” Godfrid swept out his arm. “Come! You will be staying at my house while you’re here.” He bent to Gwen. “Caitriona can’t wait to meet you.”
“And I her!” Gwen looked up at him. “Abbot Rhys sends his regrets that he was not able to come, but he didn’t want to leave his brothers to their own devices again so soon.”
“Or, to tell you the real truth, Abbot Rhys feared his prior was getting too comfortable in his seat and too sure of his own rightness to oversee the monastery.” Conall had been standing next to Prince Hywel, waiting patiently a few paces behind Godfrid, and now he stepped forward to greet Gareth with slightly less exuberance than Godfrid, if only because nobody could match the prince for enthusiasm. He had a kiss on both cheeks for Gwen.
Happily, Gwen was feeling better with every step she took away from the boat—better enough, in fact, to take Tangwen’s hand and walk with her underneath the gatehouse tunnel and into the City of Dublin itself.
At that point, however, Godfrid and Hywel, who were leading the group, with Conall and Gareth just behind, pulled up short due to the arrival of a man in churchly garb. The newcomer’s hair, which was so blond it was almost white, was cropped close to his head and untonsured, indicating he was either a novice (meaning he had not yet taken his vows), or wasn’t actually a monk. He stopped several paces away from the princes, breathing hard.
“Prince Godfrid,” he said through heavy breaths, even bending forward to put both hands on his knees. He spoke in French, seemingly because he knew he was talking to a mixed audience. “Please pardon me, I have come from Bishop Gregory. He asks that you bring your companions to the cathedral. He is in need of them.”
“My companions?” Godfrid looked bewilderedly around. “Does he mean Lord Conall? Or Prince Hywel?”
The priest managed to stand upright, and he gestured towards the cluster of Godfrid’s companions who filled the street behind him. The number included not only Gareth and Gwen and their family and retainers, but Prince Hywel and his Dragons, plus various members of Godfrid’s own guard.
“He understands you are today greeting Sir Gareth the Welshman and his wife. It is their presence he is requesting.” Then he switched languages to Danish, which Gwen little understood, but she could grasp his last few words, even in his lowered tone. “It is a matter of a dead man.”
