скачать книгу бесплатно
Traveller? Could Lord Macsen have come so soon?
Why did her belly suddenly feel full of wet wool at the thought of her chosen suitor arriving earlier than she’d expected him? Perhaps because Glyneira wasn’t yet fit to receive such exalted company, she decided. For a dozen good sensible reasons, Enid wanted to wed the border chief. She couldn’t afford to make an unfavorable impression.
“Of course you must offer him water straightaway, my pet. A big girl like you should know that by now.” Enid couldn’t help but smile at the child who looked so little like herself. Both Myfanwy and young Davy took after their late father, who’d had Mercian blood. “If our guest accepts, then we’ll know he means to stay the night at least.”
The ceremonial offer of water to wash a traveller’s tired feet was a tradition as old as the Welsh hills. If a guest refused, it meant he would not bide the night under his host’s roof. If he accepted, then the hospitality of the house would be his for as long as he chose to stay. Enid cherished the comforting familiarity of such traditions.
Myfanwy bobbed her golden head, eager as eager. “If the stranger says he’ll take water, can I wash his feet?”
“Not this time.” If Macsen had come to Glyneira, Enid wanted to make certain he was properly received—with her best ewer and basin, herb-sweetened water neither too hot nor too cold, and her softest cloths for drying. “I’ll see to it as soon as I tidy myself up. You can entertain him with your harping and singing, in the meantime. Go along now. Our guest will be pleased to hear you, I’ve no doubt, for you have a sweeter song than a linnet.”
As the child raced off, her mother called after her, “Tell Auntie Gaynor I need her to come finish a job for me.”
The wool only wanted one more rinse. Enid knew she could trust her sister-in-law not to handle the fleece over-much and risk felting it.
Hiking up her skirts, she dashed the short distance from the wash shed to the back entrance of the house, startling an old goose that ruffled up its feathers and hissed at her.
“Keep a civil tongue, or I might pluck and roast you for our guest’s supper,” Enid warned the testy fowl.
The goose waddled off with its bill in the air.
The lady of the house managed to reach her own small chamber without being harassed further. After pulling off her coarse-woven work tunic, she rummaged in the chest at the foot of her bed, looking for an overgarment better suited to welcoming such an important guest.
A flash of green caught her eye. From the very bottom of the trunk Enid lifted a fine woolen kirtle, trimmed at the neck and wrists with close-stitched embroidery. Her breath caught in her throat as she held the garment in her hands.
During the years since she’d come to Glyneira, she had found one excuse after another to avoid wearing it, until she’d almost forgotten it existed. She had worn this fine garment on her wedding day, though it had been fashioned to impress a much grander bridegroom than Howell ap Rhodri.
It reminded Enid of all she’d risked once upon a time. And all she’d lost in the risking.
“Oh, don’t be fanciful,” she scolded herself as she slipped the garment over her head. “A kirtle’s a kirtle and this is the best you own.”
As she covered her hair with a fresh veil, a small boy barrelled into the chamber. A stubby-legged puppy scrambled through the rushes at the child’s heels.
“Myfanwy said to tell you the man wants water.” Blurting out his message, Master Davy looked ready to bolt out of the room as fast as he’d bolted in—until he caught a good look at his mother.
“What’re you dressed so grand for, Mam?” Davy scooped up the puppy, who wriggled in his arms. “You look as fair as the queen of springtime. All you need is a crown of flowers in your hair like Myfanwy makes for hers.”
“Queen of springtime, is it?” Enid blushed as she remembered a young fellow who’d once fashioned a garland of spring blossoms for her hair and offered equally extravagant praise to her looks. That fellow had danced all over her heart, then danced away…never to return.
“I mind you’ll make a bard yet, Davy-lad.” Enid ruffled her son’s honey-brown hair, determined not to let thoughts of Con ap Ifan spoil this moment. “But you make it sound as though your poor mother goes around like a slattern most of the time. Away with you now before that dog messes on the floor again.”
As the boy ran off laughing, Enid noticed how tall he’d sprouted through the winter. It was a wonder he could still wriggle into his tunic, it had grown so tight. She’d have to look through her other trunk to see if there were any clothes Bryn had outgrown that might now fit Davy.
Thinking of her older son made Enid remember their guest. Of the many boons she stood to gain from wedding Lord Macsen, she most craved the chance to reunite her family. It’d been such a long time since Howell had sent the boy away for fosterage. She’d rather hoped Macsen might bring her son along on this visit.
A wistful pang gave way to questioning. It wasn’t like Macsen ap Gryffith to travel alone, without a small but skilled escort of armed men. Did the border chief have reason to call on Glyneira in secret? Or could something be wrong?
From out of the chest Enid snatched a handsome basin and ewer of beaten copper along with linen drying cloths, all too fine for any but Glyneira’s most honored guests. Making her way to the kitchen to fetch hot water, she schooled her steps to a brisk but decorous pace appropriate for a lady of the maenol. Her thoughts fluttered though, like doves in a cote when a fox prowled the ground below.
What if Macsen had changed his mind about the betrothal he’d hinted at when Howell lay dying? What if he’d never meant it in the first place—only wanted to calm her fears for the future? She’d managed well enough, had even come to enjoy being mistress of Glyneira in her own right instead of always deferring to a husband.
But the past winter had been an uncommonly quiet one. Such tranquility could not last on the borders. When strife erupted again, as surely it would, Enid wanted her children tucked up in the comparative safety of Hen Coed, buffered by a stout palisade with a canny warrior lord for a step-father.
Almost without her noticing it, the rhythm of her footsteps quickened.
The nimble music of Myfanwy’s harp greeted Enid as she entered the hall. For an instant the mellow glow of maternal pride radiated through her. Then she heard a second instrument join her daughter’s, lower in pitch and more assured in touch. Myfanwy began to sing in her high, pure treble, while a masculine voice chimed in a pleasing harmony.
The voice had a most agreeable timbre in the mellow middle register, unlike the ominous resonant rumble of Macsen ap Gryffith’s.
Enid crossed the cavernous hall with a halting gait, like a sleepwalker drawn by the Fair Folk. Something deep within her quivered to life at the sound of that all-but-forgotten voice. Or perhaps it shivered with foreboding.
She approached so quietly the two musicians did not pay her any mind at first. In the dim interior of the hall, Myfanwy’s young face seemed to cast a radiance of its own, kindled by the admiring attention of their guest.
He was a handsome fellow. Not towering and brawny like Lord Macsen, but medium tall for a Welshman, his lithe frame fleshed with hard, lean sinew. The eastern sun had tanned his face since last Enid had beheld it, and any suggestion of boyish roundness had been pared away by the years.
Topped by a vigorous tangle of nut-brown curls, it was a well-shaped face in every way. Agile brows arched above a pair of eyes that shimmered with lively charm. Beneath the straight sloping nose with its potent flared nostrils, poised a tempting pair of lips. They were neither too full nor too thin, but so ideal for kissing they made Enid’s own lips quiver just to look at them. Below that melting mouth jutted a resolute chin, softened by the disarming hint of a dimple. It was a face to break a woman’s heart.
How many more had he broken since hers?
Clutching the basin with a remorseless grip to keep her hands from trembling, Enid willed her voice not to catch in her throat as she spoke loud enough to be heard above the music.
“Well, well, Conwy ap Ifan, what are you doing in Powys? The last I heard you’d hired out as a mercenary to the Holy Land.”
His voice fell silent and he glanced up at her with a sudden questioning look. For a moment Enid’s unhealed heart wrenched in her bosom fearing he would not remember her.
Then his smile blazed forth. “Well, well yourself, Enid versch Blethyn. What are you doing in Powys? The last I heard, you were set to wed some princeling from Ynys Mon.”
Something about the set of his features or the tilt of his head sliced through Enid like an arrow loosed at close range from a powerful Welsh short bow.
Dear heaven! She must get Con ap Ifan away from Glyneira before Macsen and his party arrived.
Chapter Two
A pity he couldn’t linger here, Con found himself thinking as he cast an admiring eye over the cariad of his boyhood, since ripened into vivid, beguiling flower.
Enid’s sudden appearance and sharp questions had taken him by surprise. Yet in another way they hadn’t. Something about the child had put her mother firmly in his mind, though he’d scarcely been aware of it at the time. The sweet lilt of her young voice, perhaps, or some trick of her smile, for all else about the pair went by contraries.
The girl was fair and tall for her age and race, while her mother had the dark, fey delicacy of a true Welsh beauty. Full dark brows cast a bewitching contrast to her dainty elfin features. Her eyes were the dusky purple of black-thorn plums, and her hair—what Con could see of it and what he recalled—still black as a rook’s wing. Skin like apple blossoms and lips the rich intoxicating hue of Malmsey wine.
Indeed, a kind of besotted dizziness came over Con as he drank in her twilight loveliness.
A trill of laughter from the child startled him halfways sober again. “Mam, do you mean to wash our guest’s feet before the water gets cold?”
Enid gave a startled glance down at the ewer and basin in her hands as if they’d appeared there by magic.
“Aye.” She took a step toward Con, then hesitated. “If you wish it, that is. I only heard secondhand that you’d accepted the offer of water.”
“With pleasure.” Con set his harp aside and pried off his boots, wondering if he’d only imagined the shadow that had dimmed her features. Had she hoped he’d change his mind about accepting the water? “After a day’s brisk walk, your hospitality is most welcome. The young lady’s music has already lightened the weariness of my spirit. Such a jewel is a mighty credit to you and her tad.”
Enid had dropped to her knees on the rush-strewn floor, and begun to pour gently steaming water into the basin. At Con’s tribute to her daughter, her slender form tensed.
“Myfanwy, cariad, will you go check how Auntie Gaynor is coming with the last rinse of the wool? That’s a good girl.”
When the child had made a subdued exit, Enid explained, “My daughter does mighty credit to her father’s memory. She’s much like him in many ways.”
“I’m sorry.” Con chided himself less for the compliment gone awry than for the envious curiosity that flamed in him. By the tone of Enid’s answer, he might guess how much or how little she had loved Myfanwy’s father.
It should not matter to him…but it did.
“Was it very long ago you lost your husband?” At the last instant he managed to stop himself from adding the Welsh endearment, cariad.
“In the fall.” Enid pushed the basin toward him. Though her curt reply told him she didn’t want to dwell on the matter, it gave no real clue about her feelings for the man. “There was some trouble with the Normans, so Howell joined the muster of Macsen ap Gryffith. He took sore wounds in the fighting. They brought him home where he lingered until the first snow.”
Con eased his feet into the warm water as he digested this intriguing scrap of news about Macsen ap Gryffith. If the border chief had lost men in an autumn skirmish with the Normans of Salop, he might not need much nudging to retaliate in the spring.
“What brings you to the borders?” asked Enid, her head bent over the basin. “Did you grow tired of plying your sword for hire to the Normans?”
Her question caught Con like an unexpected thrust after a cunning feint. For a moment his glib tongue froze in his mouth. If he told her he’d come on a mission from the very people who’d killed her husband, she’d likely turf his backside out the gate, traditions of Welsh hospitality be damned.
“You might say I’m taking a rest from it.” No lie, that—not a bold-faced one, anyhow. “I mean to go back to the Holy Land, though.”
As Sir Conwy of Somewhere, riding at the head of an armed company of his own men. The dream sang a most agreeable melody in Con’s thoughts.
“In the meantime, barding lets me enjoy a bit of adventure without the danger. Mercenary or travelling bard, both make good jobs for a vagabond.”
“You’ve always had itchy heels, haven’t you, Con?” Enid mused aloud as she washed his feet. “I suppose you’ll be on your way from here tomorrow morning?”
The water was no more than tepid, but Enid’s touch set flames licking up Con’s legs to light a blaze in his loins. He could almost fancy it searing the itch of wanderlust from his flesh…but that was nonsense.
Though part of him longed to stay and visit, that tiny voice of caution urged Con to go while he still had a choice.
“Tomorrow.” He nodded. “Before Chester dogs arise, if the weather holds fair. I don’t want to wear out my welcome.”
A quivering tension seemed to ebb out of Enid as she dried his feet. For all her show of welcome, she clearly wanted to be rid of him. The realization vexed Con. He wasn’t used to women craving his absence.
Enid raised her face to him then, and Con struggled to draw breath. In the depths of her eyes shimmered a vision of the playful sprite he remembered from their childhood—so close and physically accessible, yet as far beyond the reach of an orphan plowboy as the beckoning stars.
“I’m surprised to see you whole and hale after all these years. I feared you wouldn’t last a month as a hired soldier.”
She’d worried about him. The knowledge settled in Con’s belly like a hot, filling meal after a long fast. He hadn’t expected her to spare him a backward glance.
“White my world.” That’s what the Welsh said of a fellow who was lucky, and Con had been. “I’ve had the odd close shave, but always managed to wriggle out before the noose drew tight enough to throttle me. I’ll entertain your household with some of my adventures tonight, around the fire.”
He leaned forward, planting his elbows on his thighs. “That’s enough talk of me, though. You never did say how you came to Powys from your father’s maenol in Gwynedd. From time out of mind I heard nothing but that you were meant to wed Tryfan ap Huw, and go to be the lady of his grand estate on Ynys Mon.”
Enid scrambled to her feet and snatched up the basin so quickly that water sloshed over the rim to wet the reeds on the floor. “You ought to know better than most, Con, life has a way of turning out different than you expect.”
Which was exactly how he liked it. How tiresome the world would be without those random detours, bends in the road, hills that invited a body to climb and see what wonders lay beyond.
But Enid had never thought so. More than anyone Con had ever known, she’d longed for peace and security. She’d craved a smooth, straight, predictable path through life, content to forgo the marvels if that was the price for keeping out of harm’s way. What calamity had landed her here on the Marches where turmoil reigned?
Enid flinched from the memories Con’s question provoked, in much the way she would have avoided biting on a sore tooth. Once in her life she’d taken a risk, hoping to gain the only thing she’d ever wanted more than a safe, ordered, conventional life. She’d rocked the coracle and it had capsized, almost drowning her. That ruinous venture had taught her a harsh but necessary lesson about leaving well enough alone.
The man who had cost her so dearly spoke up. “Did this turn in your life bring you happiness, Enid?”
How dare he ask such a thing, as if he had any business in her happiness after all these years? And how dare he pretend to be taken by surprise over the unexpected direction her life had taken? He’d been there when the road had forked, after all. Then he had wandered away, lured by the fairy-piped tune of adventure, leaving her to bear the consequences.
A sharp answer hovered on her tongue, but died unspoken.
If Con ap Ifan had forgotten what happened between them thirteen years ago, on the eve of his departure from her father’s house, she did not wish to remind him—could not afford to remind him. For then he might guess what had become of her, and how it had all fallen out.
“It brought me my children.” She measured her words with care, anxious not to disclose too much, nor rouse his curiosity further with blatant evasion. “They are the greatest source of pride and happiness in my life.”
A grace she’d ill-deserved.
Con’s face brightened, as if she’d told him what he wanted to hear. “No wonder you’re proud of them. They’re a fine pair, though I only saw the little fellow for a moment. Your last yellow chick, is he?”
“I beg your leave for a moment,” she interrupted him, “to toss this water out.”
Somehow she knew that after inquiring about the baby of the family, Con would next ask if she had any children older than Myfanwy and Davy. “I must see that supper’s started, too. Will you take a drop of cider to refresh you until then?”
Con did not appear to notice that she hadn’t answered his question. “Your duties must be many now that you’re both master and mistress of the house.”
He waved her away with a rueful grin. “I won’t distract you from them. We’ll talk over old times and catch up with each other during the evening meal. In the meantime, if there’s aught I can do to make myself useful, bid me as you will. I can turn my hand to most anything.”
“I wouldn’t dream of putting a guest to work.” She didn’t want him snooping around the place, talking to folks about things he had no business knowing. “Take your ease and tune your harp until supper. It’s been a long while since we’ve been entertained by a minstrel from away. You’ll more than earn your bread and brychan tonight.”
She bustled off to prepare for the meal. And to make sure her children had plenty of little chores to keep them occupied and away from the hall until supper.
“He’ll be gone in the morning,” she muttered under her breath as she worked and directed others in their work. “He’ll be gone in the morning. He’ll be gone in the morning.”
The repetition calmed her, like reciting the Ave or the Paternoster.
Yet along with the rush of relief that surged through her every time she pictured Con ap Ifan going on his way tomorrow morn without a backward glance, a bothersome ebb tide of regret tugged at Enid, too.
A small but bright fire burned in the middle of Glyneira’s hall that evening, its smoke wafting up to the ceiling where it escaped through a hole in the roof. A sense of anticipation hung in the air, too, as Enid’s household partook of their supper.
There were over two dozen gathered that evening, most distant kin of Enid’s late husband. All eager to hear the wandering bard who, according to rumor, had fought in the Holy Land.
Enid sat at the high table with Howell’s two sisters, Helydd and Gaynor. She had placed Con at the other end, between the local priest and Gaynor’s husband, Idwal, who’d taken a blow on the head a few years before and never been quite the same since.
Though everyone at Glyneira had gotten used to Idwal’s halting speech, outsiders often had trouble understanding him. Father Thomas was voluble enough to make up for what Idwal lacked in conversation, and then some. His uncle had gone to Jerusalem on the Great Crusade and returned to Wales years later to ply a brisk trade in holy relics. Enid trusted the good father to keep their guest talking on safe subjects.
Subjects that did not concern her or her family.
Once all were seated, the kitchen lasses bore in platters of chopped meat moistened with broth, and set one between every three diners, as was Welsh custom in honor of the Trinity. A young boy brought around thin broad cakes of fresh lagana bread on which diners could heap a portion of the meat dish for eating.
Gazing at their guest, Helydd leaned toward Enid and whispered, “My, he’s a handsome one, isn’t he? And so pleasant spoken. Is it true you knew him back in Gwynedd?”
