Castle of Dreams (17 page)

“I am certain he has already learned much
during four years in your household, my lord,” Guy said smoothly,
and was rewarded by Henry’s appreciative chuckle.

“You should have a wife, Guy. You will need
an heir.”

“For now, from what I’ve heard, Afoncaer is
no place to take a gently bred woman. Possibly, after the castle is
finished, I would consider marriage.”

“Perhaps to a Saxon lady.” Henry was
reportedly very happy with his own Saxon wife. “She could manage
your English estates while you are occupied in Wales.”

“I believe my brother left a competent
seneschal at each of those properties, my lord.” Guy’s back was
stiff, his blue eyes cold. Henry’s Norman knights had not approved
of their king’s marriage to one of the conquered race. No Norman of
any pride would

willingly ally himself with a Saxon unless
directly ordered by the king to do so, for the members of the old
Saxon nobility had no lands or titles left to bring to their
marriages. Henry seemed to understand Guy’s feelings.

“I’ll not press you now, since you are so
unwilling. But think on it. Begetting legal heirs is part of your
baronial duty.” When Guy said nothing to this, Henry motioned with
one hand. “You may go. Leave for Wales as soon as you can, and send
me regular reports through Reynaud.”

After Guy had left, Henry turned to Reynaud,
his brows raised inquiringly, and waited for the architect to
speak.

“An honest man, sire, though a bit
stubborn.”

“I agree. Good.” Henry nodded, pleased to
have his own opinion validated by a learned cleric. “Along with
Guy’s reports, send me your own, Reynaud, and make them detailed. I
need to know everything that happens on the Welsh border. Through
carelessness, my brother lost too much of the land our father
conquered. I want to lose no more.”

“I understand, my lord.” Reynaud hesitated,
trying to think how to say what he now must without angering the
king. He began with tentative words. “Sire, there is a problem.
Lady Isabel.”

“God’s Holy Teeth!” Henry ran his hands
through his dark hair in a gesture of frustration. “I rue the day I
ever made Isabel lady to my queen. What has she done now?”

“She asked me to speak to you in her favor,”
Reynaud said. “She is petitioning for more money, sire.”

“More? We have managed her portion well for
her. The income should be more than enough for her to live on.”

“She says Lord Lionel wasted all of her
original dowry. The money she receives from her third of Lionel’s
estate is inadequate to her expenses.”

“Inadequate? What the devil does she do with
it all? Don’t tell me.” Henry waved his hands. “I’ve seen her
clothes and her jewels. I know where it goes.”

“Let us be charitable, my lord. Her marriage
to Lionel of Adderbury was miserably unhappy. We both know what Sir
Lionel was like. I find it small wonder Lady Isabel is so inclined
to worldly pleasures, though I, too, wish she would accept her lot
and agree to marry again, as a good Norman lady should. At least we
can rejoice in her lack of interest in lovers. It is only
extravagance, though that is bad enough.” Reynaud’s voice trailed
off under his king’s stern look.

“Lady Isabel,” Henry’s tone was dry, “Will
soon bring down bankruptcy upon herself and scandal upon her own
and her son’s name if something is not done. Something to remove
her from court, where her thoughtless behavior daily offends my
dear queen. Queen Matilda has spoken to me about Isabel, too,
Reynaud. I was aware of the problem before you mentioned it. Well,
what shall we do with her? We can’t send her to a nunnery. She’d
only cause trouble there, and she always has a plausible excuse
whenever she is reprimanded for her actions. I sometimes wonder
what Isabel tells her confessor. This is what happens when women
are allowed to live unmarried.”

“You are quite right. She needs a
strong-minded husband, my lord.”

“A strong-handed husband is more like it.
Or,” Henry laughed suddenly, “a strong-minded brother-in-law.”

“Oh, my lord,” the cleric remonstrated,
seeing at once what the king was about to do, “that lady’s daily
presence would only convince Lord Guy that he should never
marry.”

“Guy needs a woman to manage his household
for him.”

“Manage? She will ruin him, my lord. She is
accustomed to every luxury. Sir Lionel always encouraged her
extravagances, and her tastes grow more opulent daily. She is quite
out of hand.”

“All the more reason to send her to Wales,
away from temptation. And you, Reynaud, will watch over her and
curb her more outrageous indulgences. Along with your other
duties.” Henry was enjoying his joke.

“I, my lord, manage that…that…lady?”

“Let us be charitable, Reynaud, shall we?”
said Henry, mocking the cleric’s earlier words. “I am depending
upon you. I trust you. Watch her well. Lady Isabel is not likely to
sit long in Wales, bored and far from the London markets, without
devising some intrigue for entertainment. Report her amusements to
me.”

Reynaud sighed, submitting himself to a
higher will.

“Yes, my lord,” he said meekly.

“Go to Wales? Me? I won’t do it. Never.” Lady
Isabel’s deep blue eyes flashed in anger as she regarded her
brother-in-law. “The queen needs me. I am one of her ladies, Guy.
You cannot take me away from my duties to her majesty, even if you
are my guardian now. The queen, and the king, will refuse to let me
leave the court. They are my dear friends, both of them.”

“It is King Henry’s express wish that you
should go with me. You will be entrusted with the management of
domestic affairs at Afoncaer.”

“Master Reynaud can serve as chamberlain,”
Isabel snapped. “You don’t need me.”

“Reynaud will have far too many other duties
to attend to household matters, and the king wants you to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Isabel tossed her
head. “I’d freeze to death in Wales. The sun never shines there. I
told Lionel, and now I tell you, I will not go to Wales until
Afoncaer is as elegant and comfortable as the royal court. I am too
delicate to live in hardship. It would ruin my health.”

“It is a royal command, Isabel. You must
obey.” Guy found himself for one horrible moment in complete
understanding and sympathy with his late brother. Watching Isabel’s
tantrum erupting, he could easily understand why Lionel had
rejected all females. The pretty, delicate bride had become a
coldly self-centered woman. And now, Heaven help him, she was his
responsibility. He devoutly wished he had stayed in the Holy Land,
or even Byzantium or Sicily. Anywhere, however exotic and far from
England, would be better than a future filled with Isabel’s
complaints and recriminations.

“It’s all a plot,” Isabel raged. “My enemies
have reached the king’s ear and spoken against me. They want me
exiled to Wales because the queen is too dear a friend to me and
they are jealous. I’ll go to Queen Matilda. I’ll tell her what has
happened. She will insist I remain at court.”

“Isabel, in God’s name, be quiet,” Guy
exploded. “You don’t want to go; I don’t want to take you; Thomas
will be embarrassed that now he must be page to his own mother, but
we have no choice.”

“Thomas is going, too? My own son in my
household, as if we were unable to find a place for him with some
great noble, and after he has been a royal page for four years?
What will people think? And he is so tall he makes me look old!
What have you done, Guy, or what did Lionel do that I haven’t been
told about? Why should my son and I be punished and sent into exile
for your misdeed, or your brother’s? Oh,” Isabel wept, “What am I
to do now?”

Guy had been about to tell her that her
“exile” was the result of her own reckless, extravagant behavior,
but that last, childish cry made him shut his lips firmly. Who knew
what indignities Isabel had been made to suffer while married to
his brother? Guy would not judge Lionel’s widow. He waited until
Isabel’s sobs had quieted a little before he spoke again.

“You will be well treated,” he promised, “As
though you were truly my own sister. You may have whatever you need
to make you content at Afoncaer. Anything within reason,” he added
hastily, recalling the cause of her disgrace.

“Nothing will make me content in that dismal
place.” Isabel was quiet a moment, thinking. Then, “Anything? Warm
clothes?”

“Of course,” he laughed, relieved to see her
looking more cheerful.

“Oh, Guy, you are the best of brothers. How
kind you are. I will need a new fur cloak and a velvet gown, deep
red, I think, and several woolen under tunics, and gloves, a cape
with a hood, fur-lined, of course, and shoes. Lots of shoes. I’ve
heard the ground is muddy in Wales.”

She rattled on while Guy listened in dismay.
Not one thought had Isabel given to young Thomas’s welfare, nor to
household equipment for Afoncaer, not a single question as to what
he, Guy, might want to take in the way of furnishings or servants.
All, all, was for Isabel’s own adornment. And this was the woman
who was to manage his household.

Dear Lord, Guy swore silently, I do promise
you here and now that I will never, never marry. I dedicate myself
solely to King Henry’s service, and I will live and die a
bachelor.

June, AD 1103

Meredith crouched a little lower behind the
hazel bush and, carefully separating the damp leaves with trembling
fingers, peered down upon the narrow road.

The knight was not alone. No Norman with his
wits about him would travel alone in these hills. Too many solitary
foreigners had been found with their throats cut, and there was
little the marcher barons could do about it, for the murderers
vanished mysteriously into the Welsh wilderness beyond the
border.

He was wise to ride armed and armored. He
wore a chain mail hauberk, with a chain mail hood pulled up to
cover his head. Over the hauberk a sleeveless tunic of wine red
silk showed three saffron-gold diamond shapes embroidered
diagonally across the chest. His shoulder-high oval shield, pointed
at the bottom, was painted the same shade as his tunic and bore the
same personal blazon of three golden diamond shapes in a diagonal
row.

The man riding behind him said something,
diverting Meredith’s attention from the knight to his squire, a
plain, thick-set fellow wrapped in a brown mantle and leading a
packhorse laden with extra armor and weapons. Behind the packhorse,
linked to it by a leather thong, came the knight’s destrier, his
great, heavy warhorse, trained to ride into the thick of battle
without shying from blood or flashing weapons or noise. For his
journey the knight had chosen to ride a palfrey, whose gait was
more comfortable over long periods of time. Out of the corner of
her eye Meredith could see following at a respectful distance a
curtained, horse-drawn litter, and beyond that, stretching along
the path, a heavily loaded and well-guarded baggage train.

All of that was unimportant to her. She
returned her attention to the knight. He was only about twenty feet
from her. As she watched he raised one hand and pushed back his
chain mail hood. She heard a soft clanking as the metal links
settled into a cowl about his neck. He lifted his face toward her.
For a moment she thought he had discovered her, but his glance
continued on toward the crest of the hill.

He was Sir Guy of Adderbury, that much she
knew of him, and she thought he must be looking for Afoncaer, the
castle that belonged to him now. She knew he would not see it yet.
He must follow the road to the river’s edge, just around the
shoulder of the next hill. From there, if the mist were not too
thick, he could see it sitting on the bluff overlooking the river
and into Wales: Afoncaer, the river fortress, proud and lonely, a
half-finished ruin.

And then a wonderful thing happened. Just as
the knight drew level with her hiding place, a beam of sunlight
broke through the mist, and he rode into it. His chain mail,
glittering with raindrops, flashed and sparkled, his face lifted
toward the golden light. She saw him smile, welcoming the sun.
Seeing that smile, all of the vague longings that had troubled her
recently came together, and she felt her heart go out of her and
fix itself upon him, and she knew he would be her lord until death
and beyond.

His features imprinted themselves upon her
brain: wide, clean-shaven jaw, long straight nose, brilliant blue
eyes, straight golden hair combed down over his brow and cut short
all around to make the heat beneath helmet and hood more bearable
in battle. He had a short, white scar along the left side of his
jaw. His bearing was arrogant, his glance haughty. It fell upon her
and he frowned and spoke to his squire. The sunbeam had disappeared
and it began to rain again.

Meredith suddenly realized that in her
astonishment at the gorgeous apparition before her she had risen to
her feet and was now plainly visible from the waist up.

The knight had pulled his mail hood back over
his head and unsheathed his sword. The squire called nervously to
the guards attending the baggage train behind them. She understood
that they believed she was one of many, an ambush.

There was only one place to go. She gathered
up her skirt and ran for her life down the steep hillside, slipping
and sliding on the wet grass, nearly falling as she cut across the
path of the knight, who had turned his horse to ride at her. The
cloth covering her hair fell off, and dark red curls tumbled into
her eyes. She brushed them aside with a hasty gesture as she
recovered her balance.

She heard shouts behind her, but she paid
them no heed. She splashed through an icy stream, out on the other
side, and headed for the forest, racing into the thick underbrush
for refuge, knowing no horse could follow her there. She kept
going, twisting and turning on paths familiar to her but invisible
to her pursuers, who would be on foot now. She heard dogs barking
and ran faster. She came to another stream and spent precious time
wading carefully downstream, hoping the swift-flowing water would
carry her scent away from the hounds. After a while the sounds of
pursuit ceased, but she stayed in the water just to be sure she was
safe.