Beauchamp Besieged. Elaine Knighton

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      Chapter Two

      1200, four years later, southern Wales

      Ceridwen paced before her father. Plain rushes crunched beneath her feet, not fine herbs or lavender. Lord Morgan’s hall at Llyn y Gareg Wen remained free of luxury. Firelight leaped on the stone walls, reflecting the gleam of lances, swords, and longbows, hung ready for retrieval at a moment’s notice.

      “Nay, Da, I will not be your bait. God intervened when I was but a lass to spare me marriage to a Beauchamp. Now you wish again to make alliance with those soulless wolves?”

      Morgan gently set his goblet on the scarred oak table. That he did not bang it down warned Ceridwen just how angry he was. “Be quiet and sit, child.” He turned his dark, sharp gaze full upon her. “For once you will do as you are told. You have disobeyed me in many things, but this shall not be one of them.” His leather-bottomed chair creaked as he rose and took over the pacing where she left off.

      Ceridwen flung herself onto a seat opposite her elder brother, Rhys. Her half-dozen siblings watched with great interest, from nearly every available perch in the hall. Little Dafydd climbed into her lap. She stroked his dark hair and held him close. The wee ones needed her more than ever now that Mam was gone. She gulped back the lump in her throat and tried to concentrate on what her father was saying.

      Morgan paused before the hearth and stared into the flames. “Old baron Beauchamp was wise to offer us peace once, through his youngest son, Parsifal. And as you say, Parsifal’s death was the result of intervention, divine or otherwise. But the remaining Beauchamp sons no longer have the counsel of their father. They harry us without mercy, and I cannot keep up this resistance forever.”

      “But—”

      Her father silenced her with a severe look. “The next eldest Beauchamp, Raymond, has a few more brains in his head than the others. That aside, he is land-hungry. He had to sell his late wife’s domains to fund the defense of his keep at Rookhaven. He chafes against the yoke his lord brother Alonso has placed round his neck.”

      “And you wish me to act as the balm to soothe him?”

      “I do!” Morgan’s fierce tone punctured her show of bravery. “Baron Alonso wields a vast fist of power. And Sir Raymond is the well-honed dagger within that fist. Alonso suspects Raymond is near the breaking point. He has promised me, if I do not find a way to thwart Raymond’s revolt, I, and all who are dear to me will suffer for it. And Alonso is a master of understatement.”

      Her father smiled in a way that sent chills down Ceridwen’s spine. She hugged Daffyd until he squirmed out of her arms. Morgan’s gaze followed his youngest child’s search for a more comfortable female lap, then he continued. “What Alonso does not know is that I will control his brother by making an alliance with him. Alonso will be held at bay by the threat of both Raymond and the Talyessin, and we will have Raymond under our watchful eye. Your eye.” Morgan took his seat once again.

      “What if I cannot bear the sight of this man, nor the uncouth sound of his language, nor his rabid touch? What would you have me do, when Owain’s blood is still unavenged?” Her handsome, fey Owain, both warrior and soothsayer. Ceridwen balled her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms.

      She remembered the day of his death with agonizing clarity. Owain had lain in the meadow as if asleep, but there was so much blood—she could still see the evil gleam from the eyes of the killer, within his shadowed helm. A knight under the Beauchamp banner had called her Cymraes, as though he thought her worthless and crude. And now she was being told to marry one of the monsters! Everyone knew what the English were like. They roasted their enemies over slow fires and ate them alive.

      Ceridwen narrowed her eyes and searched her father’s face for a sign he might relent. Finding none, she felt for her ivory flute, stuck through the belt at her waist. She twisted the warm cylinder in her hands and wished her mother were still alive. There were questions she could not ask Da, and even Mam had never fully explained the intimate details of what marriage meant for a woman. Now at nineteen—old enough to have borne several babes—she was mortified to admit her ignorance to anyone else.

      Ceridwen caught the look her father exchanged with Rhys, who lounged in a confident sprawl on a bench near the fire. Her brother’s head moved in a small negative shake. They always had secrets, those two. And kept them from her with great success.

      Morgan casually unsheathed his dagger and picked up a whet-stone from the table. “You СКАЧАТЬ