Castle of Dreams (22 page)

Guy watched Branwen incline her head and
smile at Thomas as though she had been reared to accept the
addresses of courtiers. He forgot Branwen when he looked at
Meredith, who was smoothing Thomas’s ruffled golden hair and
telling him to keep his injured knee clean and not fall down on it
for a day or two. She had a sweet smile, and when she met Guy’s
glance there was something in her face that tugged at his
heart.

A maiden out of an ancient legend, Guy
thought, living in a cave in an enchanted forest with a lost
princess and a magical cat and an elderly wizard. He could almost
believe that somewhere in the darkness of the inner cave lurked a
fire-breathing dragon, protector of them all. He laughed to himself
at his own imaginings, but he went away feeling almost as young and
innocent as Thomas.

Sir Guy fitz Lionel, late of Adderbury, now
Baron of Afoncaer, could not sleep. Every time he closed his eyes
he saw Meredith. In spite of her denial, he felt certain she must
be a witch. Why else would her image torment him so?

For his long absence earlier that day he had
made no excuses to anyone but Isabel. He was lord of the castle, so
no explanation was necessary. He had silenced Isabel’s curiosity by
saying he had taken Thomas out to look at the land along the river,
and since he had returned with Thomas riding mounted behind him she
could not say his story was untrue. To Reynaud’s more subtle
questions Guy turned a deaf ear.

He wished he could sleep. He lay on a thin
straw pallet on the earth floor of the great hall, along with most
of the other men. Guy did not mind his hard bed. He had known worse
ones on his travels, and had several times slept on the bare ground
the night before a battle. He was accustomed to sleeping in a room
filled with other people.

No, it was that red-haired witch-woman who
had enchanted him and kept him from sleep.

Angrily, he turned on his other side. He had
to stop these mad ideas. He was beginning to think like Father
Herbert. She was no witch, nor were the others. There had been no
evil in that cave. None.

He had been without a woman for too long,
that was it. He wanted nothing to do with the creatures his
sister-in-law had brought with her to Afoncaer. They were all too
old or scrawny or too homely, and the females he had seen among the
villeins were not worthy of a single glance.

He imagined how it would be to hold Meredith
in his arms and feel her clinging to him, wanting him. He could
take her if he wished and make her his mistress. Other Norman lords
did such things and no one thought anything of it. It was their
right. Meredith was too far below him in rank for them to come to
any other arrangement. His proud Norman blood curdled at the
thought of marriage with a Saxon, and a peasant at that.

But if he installed her at Afoncaer, in the
private chamber that would be his in the tower keep Reynaud was
building, he would have to face the pain and sorrow in Rhys’s fine
grey eyes, not to mention Branwen’s scorn and contempt. And Thomas,
what would Thomas think of the uncle he idolized if Guy took
Thomas’s friend Meredith to his bed?

Then there was Meredith herself. He had seen
her pride and her dignity when she had said she was a healer. Would
she come to him willingly or would he have to force her? He had
never lain with a woman who did not want him. He would not start
with Meredith.

He sighed, turning over again. It was
impossibly difficult, this business of being lord of a castle. He
was besieged by conflicting demands and could not meet them all. He
was lonely. He longed for comfort. Ah, to lie in Meredith’s arms
and know joy and peace. Meredith.

Damnation! He needed company, not a woman.
The only man at Afoncaer worth talking to was Reynaud, and he was a
cleric, a man of books, not a knight. He needed men of his own kind
about him, and he knew just who they should be. He might even
persuade them to stay permanently. A report on the progress of
Afoncaer was being sent to King Henry the next day. Guy would have
Reynaud write a personal letter, to be taken by the same messenger.
Walter fitz Alan would surely come to Afoncaer at his invitation,
and assuming Walter could locate him, Brian of Collen would come,
too. They would celebrate their reunion with a great feast. It was
too bad the new keep, with its guest rooms built into the thickness
of the walls, would not be finished for another year or so, but
they would have another feast to celebrate that when the time came.
Walter and Brian would not mind sleeping in the great hall on
tables or benches, or even under them, if they were drunk
enough.

Until his friends came he would keep busy and
try to stay away from that alluring cave in the forest, and soon he
would forget the flame-haired wench who lived there. He would make
himself forget her. On that thought, Guy fell asleep at last.

He was trying to understand Reynaud’s
carefully-drawn plans for placement of buildings in the inner
bailey, but his sister-in-law’s angry tones filled the great hall,
assaulting Guy’s ears and making concentration impossible,
especially in the mid-summer heat.

“Something must be done about this. Whenever
I want Thomas to do something for me, I can’t find him. Where does
he go?”

“He has other duties, too, Isabel, besides
attending you. There is weapons practice. He’s learning how to use
a sword and lance. Then there is riding and wrestling, and he’s
helping the falconer in the mews. There are a hundred things a
future knight must learn to do. He spends a lot of time with
Geoffrey, and with Captain John. Women don’t understand these
things.”

Isabel flounced away, pouting, and Guy went
back to Reynaud’s plans. He had a pretty good idea where Thomas had
disappeared to every day or so for the past few weeks. He had let
it go on, knowing Thomas was lonely and upset by his enforced move
from the familiar royal court to the strangeness of Afoncaer, but
the boy ought to be over it by now, and he ought not to neglect his
duties as page to his mother. Guy would have to speak to him.

“I can’t help it. Uncle Guy,” Thomas told
him. “I just want to visit the cave as often as I can. I like
talking to Rhys. He knows wonderful stories, and Meredith is
fun.”

Guy could see he would have to do something
more about Thomas. He could well imagine what would happen should
Father Herbert grow curious and decide to follow the boy one day.
He waited until Thomas was occupied at weapons practice before he
started for the cave. He met Meredith before he reached it.

He did not recognize her at first. Her
glorious hair was completely covered by a linen scarf and she was
on her knees on the ground, digging roots, which she threw into a
flat basket beside her. Seeing her from behind he thought from her
clothes that she was an old woman, a villein, and he was about to
order her out of his forest when she raised her head and he saw her
lovely, innocent face and her silver-grey eyes, and at that instant
his firm resolution to forget her flew out of his mind as if he had
never made it.

“It’s you,” he said, unable to think of
anything else to say, as though he were an inexperienced page.

“My lord Guy.” He was the last person
Meredith expected to see. She tried to hide her muddy hands behind
her back, aware that her old dress, which she wore only for this
dirty work, was too short. She had grown several inches since it
was made soon after she had come to the cave, and she owned a new
one now that fit her better. She wished she was wearing it, instead
of this ill-fitting, soiled one.

“I was going to the cave to see Rhys,” Guy
said, “But I think I’ll talk to you instead. What will you do with
those?” He indicated the roots.

“Hang them up until they dry and then grind
them into powder. Rhys uses the powder in his medicines. It has a
soothing effect. First I have to wash the mud away.”

When she started to stand he leaned forward
and took her elbow to help her. She felt the warmth and the
strength of his hand for just a moment before he drew back, but the
touch was enough to send the blood to her face. She saw he had
picked up the basket.

“To the stream?” he asked.

She nodded wordlessly and led the way. He sat
down on the bank of the stream and watched her as she cleaned the
roots and then, when she had finished that task, tried to get the
dirt off her hands. She wiped them on the skirt of her robe,
knowing his dark blue eyes were following her every movement.

“Why did you want to see Rhys?”

“Rhys?” His expression was oddly soft as he
studied her. “Oh, yes, Rhys. It’s about Thomas. He has been
neglecting his duties. His mother is disturbed by his absences. I
suspect it is because he goes to the cave to see Rhys. And you.
He’s very fond of you. I can see why.”

Meredith dropped her eyes, unable to bear his
close examination of her face. She sat twisting her hands together,
her head bowed. It was happening again, just as it had the other
times she’d seen him. Her heart was thumping so loudly he must be
able to hear it, and she could hardly breathe. No one she had ever
met before had made her feel like this.

“I thought,” Guy said, “that Rhys might
suggest that Thomas not visit the cave so often.”

“You are Thomas’s guardian and master. Why do
you not simply order him to stay away and threaten to punish him if
he disobeys?” That, Meredith reflected, was what one would expect a
Norman lord to do. But she knew by now that this man was very
different from the Normans Branwen had so often warned her against,
and she wanted to hear what he would say.

Guy did not answer her at once. He drew his
knees up and rested his arms on them, then put his chin down on his
arms and stared across the stream into the green thickness of his
forest. Meredith felt he was struggling with some inner problem. As
Rhys had taught her to do with their patients, she sat quietly
beside him, waiting patiently until he was ready to speak.

“When I was a boy,” Guy said at last, “I had
an older brother.”

“Lord Lionel,” she supplied, and he nodded,
his eyes still on the trees.

“Lionel,” he said, “was our parents’ great
hope, their means of improving their position in the world. Their
lives centered on him, though they had no real love for him. They
demanded and urged and pushed and forced and sometimes beat him to
make him do what was expected of him, whether Lionel wished it or
not.

“I was more fortunate. I was only the younger
son, and though I knew I must never disgrace our family honor,
still I had more freedom, I could dream my own dreams. Did you know
my brother?”

“No,” Meredith said. “We kept away from
Afoncaer while Lord Lionel ruled there. I never even saw him.”

“When Lionel was Thomas’s age he was still as
good and innocent as Thomas is now. Our parents’ ambitions, and
later his own, which they had planted in him, shriveled Lionel’s
soul until he was changed into something ugly and vicious.

“Thomas’s mother is every bit as ambitious as
my parents were. Had they both stayed at court, she would very soon
have begun to use Thomas as my parents used Lionel. I did not want
that to happen, and since I am now his guardian, I was able to
convince King Henry to let me bring Thomas here. I want him to have
time to go off by himself and dream or explore or do whatever he
wants to do. But his absences are too frequent. His mother
complains loudly about this, and there are those at Afoncaer who
speak of lawbreakers who insist upon pursuing the old ways. Those
people would be most interested to know where Thomas goes and who
he sees. That interest could be dangerous to you and Branwen and
Rhys, but more important to me, it could be dangerous to
Thomas.”

“What you want,” Meredith said softly, “is
for one of us to tell Thomas to stop visiting the cave, so you
won’t have to tell him yourself.”

“Not stop, only not visit so frequently. I
believe it will come more kindly from Rhys or you, or even from
Branwen, than from me. I don’t want to hurt him by ordering him. He
has enough pain to bear already – his father’s death, loneliness
for his friends at court, and his mother’s indifference.” This last
was said very softly.

“You love him,” Meredith said.

“Yes, I do.” At last he looked at her, the
intensity of his gaze shattering the calm she had managed to
achieve despite his nearness. “Thomas is all I have, all of my
family that’s left. I wish I could keep him safe.”

Her heart went out to him anew as she saw in
his face pain over his brother’s wicked life and too-early death,
and fear that the same thing would happen to his nephew.

“I will tell Rhys what you have said,” she
promised.

“Thank you.” He lifted his hand, cupping her
chin with a gentle touch. “How sweet you are. How lovely.”

Before she could protest the familiarity or
move away, his lips brushed hers, very lightly. His face was so
near it was blurred to her sight. She closed her eyes as he kissed
her again, and again, and then once more, barely touching her lips
each time, one hand still cradling her face while his mouth teased
and enticed and lured her until her own opened. With his free hand
he caught her against his chest, and this time his mouth was hard
and firm and the kiss went on and on until the blood was pounding
in her ears and she was breathless, and his tongue touched hers
with fire. She cried out, but the sound was smothered by his mouth.
When he let her go at last her head was reeling. She saw the flame
in his eyes and knew he would push her back onto the soft green
moss at the stream’s edge and kiss her again. She had no idea what
would happen after that, but she wanted that next kiss. She saw him
bending closer, then pulling back as a twig snapped behind him.