Rexanne Becnel (7 page)

“I’m hungry,” Isolde announced as the midday sun began to find its way into the deeply shadowed ravine. “Can we eat now?”

“What did you—”

“—bring to eat?” the twins asked.

Wynne looked up, relieved for a break from her warring emotions. “We’ve Gwynedd’s barley bread, cheese, herring, and dried raisins. There’s a small spring beyond that hanging vine—right up in the wall. Why don’t all of you wash up there? Wash especially well and get any grit or plant stains off your hands,” she added with a guilty glance at the Englishman.

Cleve FitzWarin was sitting back on a thick carpet of moss, and the sun shining through the tree branches above dappled him with light. Wynne was uncomfortably aware once more of the vital strength of him. What was worse, however, was that he watched her now with the most discerning of gazes. The leather pouch she’d given him was filled, but she couldn’t help wincing at the sight of his green-stained fingertips.

“You’d better wash too,” she muttered reluctantly. “Here, use this soaproot.”

He caught the stringy bit of root mass she tossed him, then handed it to Arthur. “Go along, lad. Do as Wynne says. I’ll wash in a bit.”

When Arthur scampered off, FitzWarin turned his disturbing gaze back on her. He scratched the back of one hand idly, and Wynne swallowed uneasily. It was just a matter of time before his skin reacted to the irritating sap. She wanted to be back at Radnor Manor before that happened.

“I’d like to know more about the children,” he began, surprising her with his directness.

All her mixed feelings fled, and she gave him a wary look. “Why? What concern are they to you?”

“They’re the offspring of English soldiers, are they not?”

Wynne’s jaw clenched. “The bastards of a vile and cruel army,” she hissed, though not loud enough for the children to hear. “The forgotten by-blows of a heartless invading people.”

For once, he was not able to completely hide his reaction. She saw a faint flush cross his jaw, and his throat worked as he swallowed hard. So she had made him uncomfortable. Good.

“I am told your people do not hold a child’s parentage against him,” he responded, his tone low and mild in comparison with hers.

“And I’m told your people do,” she snapped back.

His gaze did not waver under her furious glare. “There are those of us born on the wrong side of the sheets who yet manage to rise above it.”

“You?” she exclaimed. “Are you saying that
you
were bastard-born?”

He nodded once, and for a moment Wynne stared at him in ill-disguised shock. She could see his admission had not come easy, and that fact touched her with unexpected sympathy. How foolish were the English, she thought. To blame a child for his parents’ actions was so unfair. The pain of it clearly lingered long after the child grew to adulthood.

Yet she knew that she could not afford to let this man’s own troubled childhood affect her judgment. She forced herself to sound firm. “Be that as it may, your similarity of situation in no way gives you the right to pry into the lives of these children.”

“Perhaps not. But the expressed wishes of one of their fathers does.”

“Their fathers?” Wynne stared at him, not quite understanding what he meant. “What do you mean, ‘their fathers’?” Then she gasped, and her hands tightened into fists. “They
have
no fathers,” she snapped, hardly able to believe that anyone, even an Englishman, could believe that those men’s wishes mattered in the least to her.

“One of them has a father who wants him,” the English knight countered with maddening persistence. “I’d like your help in determining just which one it is.”

“A father who wants him?” she sputtered, still in shock. “A father who wants him? If that were not so poor a joke, I’d laugh in your face!”

“ ’Tis not a joke. I have good reason to believe one of these children you raised was sired by my liege lord. He but wants the child of his loins.”

“The child of rape, you mean. He gave up all rights to any child when he joined the godless horde that stormed across this land, killing, raping, and pillaging!”

He had the good grace to pause at her angry words, but then he pushed on. “What’s done is done. Would you punish the child now by denying him the rights of his parentage?”

At that very moment Rhys and Madoc came tumbling back toward them, racing to see who was the faster. Only by the most stringent effort was Wynne able to bury her burning emotions. But her hands balled into fists and her jaw tightened painfully as her eyes glared her bitter feelings at him. Though she held her tongue, however, her mind seethed with vengeance.

Deny the child his parentage. What a fool this man was. Did he truly believe that anyone of
Cymru
would ever consider an English heritage valuable? Only the arrogant English would see it that way. And now this most arrogant of all Englishmen had come to her, wishing to take one of her children back to England with him!

Had she all the abilities attributed to her by the gossips, she would have turned him into a viper then and there, or at least struck him down with an affliction of the gut. Maybe blinded him or caused his tongue to swell and thicken, then rot and fall out. But she did not possess such dark powers, and she’d never thought it such a pity as she did now.

“Wynne, Wynne. Madoc didn’t wash with soaproot,”

Isolde shouted as she, too, ran up. “He only wet his hands a very little, then wiped them on my skirt!”

With a last cutting glare at FitzWarin Wynne turned to the children. “Madoc, go back and wash up properly. And if any others of you have done a poor job of it, back you go as well.”

As Madoc turned reluctantly back toward the spring, Wynne remembered the parsley fern and felt a quick glimmer of satisfaction. This Cleve FitzWarin thought he could simply ride his tall destrier into Wales, pick out some child, and return to England with it, did he? Well, he was in for a bitter lesson, and she was only too happy to be the one to give it to him. By the time she finished with him, he would consider the uncomfortable itching of his hands nothing at all. She would see him and his men retching from the food they ate, purged by the drink they took, and made dizzy by the smoke they breathed. Their skin would itch and their bowels would burn. Even sleep would not give them peace, for she knew where to find the black mold that caused dreadful dreams to both the waking and the sleeping.

She turned to look at him, and a thin, gloating smile lifted her lips. He would rue the day he ever crossed her path, thinking to steal one of her children from her.

But if he wondered at her odd and unexpected smile, or suspected the wicked thoughts and plans that fostered it, his expression did not reveal it. He only nodded at her once, then rose to head toward the spring.

Let him wash, she thought, following his tall form with her vengeful glare. It would only soften the effects of the parsley fern, not banish it. Besides, that was only a taste of what she had in store for him.

They left the Cleft shortly after their meal. Wynne led the way up the rocky wall, followed again by the children and the Englishman. Once she clambered over the rim, she turned to help Isolde out, and then Bronwen. Rhys and Madoc insisted on climbing the last steep section unassisted. When Arthur peeped over the edge, he, too, declined her help.

“I can do it,” he insisted, panting from his efforts. He reached for the same exposed root the other boys had grasped, but when he pulled on it, it gave with a sudden snap.

“Arthur!” Wynne cried, grabbing wildly as he teetered backward. But she couldn’t get there fast enough, and as she watched in horror, he began to fall.

“Where do you think you’re going?” With a quick movement FitzWarin caught Arthur’s tunic. For a moment the boy dangled, arms and legs flailing in fear. Then the man pulled him against his chest, holding him safely next to the rough wall of the ravine.

“You’re all right now, my boy. Just catch your breath a bit.”

Wynne heard the labored rush of Arthur’s breath and was equally aware of her own relieved gasp for air. It had all happened so quickly, yet she felt now as drained as if she’d run a league and more. “Give him to me,” she demanded in a voice that shook.

The Englishman met her frightened eyes, and for an instant their gazes held. Gone was her anger, replaced now by an immense gratitude. How could she have been so careless? She knew Arthur did not have the physical skills of the twins. If this man had not been there …

She forced her gaze away from his and instead peered down at Arthur. “Are you all right? Here, take my hand.”

Once he was safely out of the Cleft, she pulled him into a smothering embrace. “Oh, Arthur, you frightened me so,” she murmured into his soft, wavy hair as she fought back a rush of tears. She breathed in the scent of him, of dirt and little-boy sweat and barley bread.

“Wynne!” He exclaimed, squirming away after a moment. “I’m not a baby, you know.” He slipped away from her, then glanced over at FitzWarin, and his pale face lit up with a smile of admiration. “It’s my good fortune that you were there,” he said, in his more usual adult phrasing.

“Yes, it was,” the Englishman answered gravely. Then he extended one hand to Arthur. “Do you think you could give me a hand up?”

Arthur leaped to the task, an eager grin on his face. Forgotten was that moment of terror, Wynne realized. Forgotten was everything in the face of this man’s easy way with the boy. In that same instant she reluctantly recognized how much Arthur needed a father. How much they all did.

Coming as it did on the tail of the Englishman’s revelation of his purpose in Wales, that admission was nearly her undoing. They needed a father, even the girls. No matter how hard she tried to mother them, she couldn’t change that fact. Yet giving up even one of them to their English father was not the solution.

Unable to deal with these new and troubling thoughts, Wynne rose abruptly to her feet. “Let’s be on our way then. Rhys, Madoc, come away from that vine. If you two think you’re going to try that foolhardy feat again—Here, I want you two separated. Rhys, you shall go with Bronwen. There, up ahead of me. And Madoc, you and Isolde stay behind me—”

“I’ll walk with Sir Cleve,” Arthur piped up.

“No, you shall walk with me,” Wynne retorted. She crossed to Arthur and took his hand in hers, pulling him clear of the Englishman. Sir Cleve, indeed! It seemed the English gave titles to baby-stealers now. What a godless race they were.

“You’re hurting my hand,” Arthur complained. He pulled hard against her. “Wynne!”

In sudden confusion Wynne stared down at the child. His eyes were wide and frightened. The other children, too, were watching her with expressions ranging from uncertainty to fear. She released Arthur at once, then clasped her own hands together. Anything to stop the awful shaking that had suddenly overcome them.

“Are you all right?” the Englishman asked in a quiet voice. When she didn’t answer, he turned to the children. “The five of you start up the path. You know the way. Go slowly and stay together. Wynne has had a little scare, that’s all. We’ll follow shortly.”

The children obeyed at once. Though Wynne would like to have called them back—to gather them all in her arms and draw strength from their very nearness—at that moment all she could do was stand there, trembling.

“Are you all right?” he asked once more.

Again Wynne didn’t answer. She couldn’t. The truth was, she was not all right. Her life, which had seemed so even and calm, so predictable, now was shattering all around her. And all because of this man.

He put a hand on her arm and turned her to face him, but at his touch she jerked away. Though she’d had a strong sense of his presence before she’d even laid eyes on him, that was as nothing compared with the effect of his touch. It was so strong, it shook her to her very core. Even as she backed away from him, she could still feel the individual impressions of each one of his fingers.

“Stay away from me,” she whispered, not sure whether it was her fear or the threat she intended that came through in her voice. “Stay away from me and my children.”

“Listen to me, Wynne.” He stepped forward, arms open in appeal. “Let me tell you everything, and then you’ll understand.”

“I understand all I need to understand,” she retorted. “You’ve come here to steal one of my children. That makes you my foe, and … and …” Her voice wavered, and she knew she sounded more like an emotional woman than an enemy to be feared. But still she plunged on. “And I’ll fight you with every fiber of my being.”

She started to step back and turn away. He was too close. He was too big and too intimidating. But before she could move, he had her by both arms. Once more that unexpected charge of energy shot through her, catching her off guard. Then he lowered his face to the same level as hers and glared back at her.

“I don’t want to fight you,” he snapped, giving her a slight shake for emphasis. “One of your children was very likely sired by Sir William Somerville. He’s a very powerful and rich man, and he wants to give his son all the benefits due him.”

“You can’t be sure it’s one of my children.”

“He left a woman here in Radnor Forest, a woman who was heavy with his child. He called her by the name Angel, and even though I’ve searched the whole forest, she’s nowhere to be found. But you’ve got five English orphans of those times.” He shrugged as if that were proof enough, and indeed it did give Wynne pause. But she would never give her children up to an Englishman.

“That proves nothing at all. Besides, the English hate their bastards,” she spat back at him. “Everybody knows that. Didn’t your father hate you?”

She knew at once she’d scored a blow, for his hands tightened around her arms. “You little witch,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “ ’Tis my very bastardy that guides me in this. Those boys—all of them—need their fathers. They need a man to look up to. To receive approval from.”

“They have men—real men who do not rape and murder and torture! Druce is there for them, and they look up to him.”

“He’s
not
their father.” He gave her another shake. “And
you’re
not their mother.”