Chapter 39
May, 1177
Rhuddlan Castle, Gwynedd
The two soldiers galloped up to the small party, pulling their reins back with only inches to spare and causing their horses to prance fitfully. “It’s there, my lord; just over that hill,” one of them said breathlessly. “The land slopes down into a meadow. A single structure, undefended.”
“Anybody about?” Longsword asked, pushing his helmet down tight over his coif.
The man hesitated, darting a quick glance at Richard Delamere’s inscrutable expression. “Several children, my lord,” he said.
“Right,” Longsword nodded. “Let’s go.”
Delamere needed no further urging. With a sudden dig of his spurs, he leaped forward, ahead of Longsword and his companions.
Rhirid had committed a fatal error, Longsword thought as he followed his friend with slightly less speed. The Welsh chief had been lucky three times before: wounding him without reprisal, kidnapping Gwalaes’ (would he ever be able to say her name without his stomach twisting painfully?) child without reprisal and, most recently, abducting his wife without reprisal, but he’d gone one step too far when he’d taken Olwen and her sons. Longsword had been quite prepared to give up Teleri—he’d practically wanted to give up living, anyway—but he’d been abruptly and violently shaken out of his doldrums when Delamere had raced into Rhuddlan with the heart-stopping news that his manor and its surrounding fields had been burned to the ground, his animals slaughtered, his laborers and servants forced to flee for their lives and his family taken away.
He had snapped to action then because at that moment Delamere meant more to him than anybody ever had, including Gwalaes. His lethargy evaporated and his self-pity was forgotten. He was outraged that Rhirid had dragged an innocent party into their feud. Delamere was out of his mind and practically unapproachable. He’d hurtled into the fortress, hollering for a fresh horse to be brought to him and, seeing his obvious agitation, fitz Maurice had gotten the story out of him. Longsword was called down and together the two men had tried to persuade Delamere from his intended action, which was to find Rhirid, but he would not listen to reason. No one had any idea where Rhirid was, Longsword argued, and the woods could be littered with Welshmen just waiting to ambush passing Normans.
Delamere had turned on him with a savage look. “If that’s true, then it’s your doing, William! Sitting on your backside for a week, feeling sorry for yourself and drinking yourself into a stupor—Rhirid could very well be up to our gate with his men, for all you’re concerned about defense!” And then the stinger: “This never would have happened if we hadn’t stopped fighting Llanlleyn! If you hadn’t agreed to that ill-conceived peace!”
Longsword hadn’t anything to say to that. There’d been nothing to do but call for his own horse and equipment and half a dozen men and go with Delamere.
They’d found nothing but shepherds’ homesteads and seen nothing but sheep.
“He’s disappeared and we’ll never find him,” Longsword said. “We must make him come to us. An accidental death and he showed up on our doorstep with a contingent of advisors; let’s find out what the Welsh fine is for deliberate murder.”
Their objective stood in the lee of a gentle hill, on a sweep of flat, green earth. The mild but wet winter had been kind to the land and a profusion of tiny white and purple blossoms decorated the hillside. Longsword and his men reined in behind Delamere, who had paused at the crest of the hill to gaze down at the low stone building with a door but no windows and a stable for the livestock at one end. Smoke drifted in a slow spiral upwards from the center of the roof, a small vegetable garden, protected by a brush wall from rooting animals, looked freshly planted and a pair of goats grazed lazily on a small patch of grass near the stable. Three small children played together in the bright sunlight, their laughs and squeals reaching to the men looking down on them.
It all happened very quickly. The sun glinted off one man’s shield and caught the attention of the children, who gaped up at the knights and soldiers lining the hill and then ran shouting towards the house. A cloud passed before the sun; Longsword raised his sword to signal the attack and the horsemen rushed down the hillside, trampling everything in their paths.
Two men appeared in the doorway, armed only with heavy sticks, and were immediately cut down by flashing blades. The goats were chased and slaughtered; knights thundered out into the pastures, whooping and shouting, and hunted down the panicked, bleating sheep.
Longsword ordered the house burned. The Welshmen’s bodies were dragged out of the way and the door broken down. The three children and two women emerged screaming and pleading. A pair of Longsword’s men pushed them out of the way and entered the house. They smashed up the sparse interior with the joy of unruly adolescents and came out with hastily fashioned, flaming torches which they tossed up into the thatch roof.
Delamere sat on his horse and watched the proceedings with a cool eye. Longsword glanced uneasily at him once or twice, wondering why he didn’t join in the destruction and get some of his frustration out of his system, but was too put off by his friend’s detached demeanor to ask. He heard the women screech as they fell on the bodies of their husbands and saw Delamere grit his teeth in annoyance. The children, all young boys, hovered nearby, frightened and confused. One of them bent down and picked up a rock. With freak accuracy and surprising strength, he heaved it at the pair of Normans and it struck Delamere square on the shoulder. Delamere cursed and grabbed his reins and Longsword thought that this was it, but then the other man checked himself; he stared at the children for a long moment and then turned his mount’s head in the opposite direction and trotted off.
The return to Rhuddlan was loud and triumphant. Longsword imagined that Rhirid could hear it wherever he was hiding. There was cause for celebration apart from the successful raid because the Normans believed that the old Longsword was back and they were delighted that after nearly a fortnight of inactivity, they were to finally be allowed to avenge Rhirid’s assaults.
Richard Delamere disappeared within the fortress and did not surface at the wild and drunken revel which that night passed for supper. It didn’t occur to Longsword until much later that perhaps his friend had gone back out, dissatisfied with the attack on an inconsequential holding and determined to flush out the Welsh chief. Suddenly anxious, he searched the barracks, the stables, the narrow corridors running among the outbuildings behind the keep in the hope that perhaps Delamere was finding solace in the arms of one of the Welsh servants; even the latrines, but with no luck. The guards at the front gate reported no one had gone out or come in since the marauders had returned and the one at the postern, newly placed since the debacle with the Welsh, also hadn’t let anyone out, although Longsword wondered how true that statement was; the man had clearly been dozing when confronted.
But at last he found Delamere in the chapel, sitting alone with a skin of wine. The small light of the perpetual flame was the only illumination in the room and it took Longsword’s eyes a while to adjust to the obscurity and a little longer to make out his friend’s figure, sprawled on the ground between two rear benches.
He walked slowly to the back of the chapel until he was standing over him. “Are you all right?” was all he could think of to say.
Delamere didn’t look up. He grunted.
“I’ve been looking for you. I didn’t think this was the sort of place you’d visit voluntarily but I’d searched everywhere else.”
Delamere sighed. He squinted at Longsword. “I came here because I thought it would be the one quiet place in this castle. I wanted to be alone.”
“Oh…Should I leave?”
Delamere sighed again and pushed himself into a more upright position. “No.” He held up the wineskin. “Drink?”
“Thanks.” Longsword took a swallow and passed it back. He sat down on the nearest bench and cleared his throat, but remained otherwise silent.
“If you want conversation, I’ll have to
disappoint you,” Delamere said. “I’m not very good company tonight.”
“Well…” Longsword laughed awkwardly. “I feel I owe it to you. I wasn’t good company myself the past few weeks…”
He could see his friend smile faintly. “After all these years, Will, I’m used to your moods…”
Longsword felt a vicious stab of emotion in his stomach. Delamere knew him better than anyone, had stood by his side and at his back since they’d been boys, had always counselled him wisely or prodded him mercilessly when he’d needed advice or a push, had hitched his future to his not because Longsword was the son of the king and certain to reap the wealth and prestige of such a position, but because he genuinely liked him—“I’ll get her back for you, Richard; I swear it…” he asserted suddenly and vehemently.
Delamere smiled again. “Thanks, Will.” He paused and added quietly, “The thing is, I’ve been wondering if she wants to come back.”
“What do you mean? Of course she does—she’s been kidnapped!”
“I was told that Rhirid’s men came only for her. That she screamed and fought because she wouldn’t leave the children and that when the men agreed the boys could go along, she calmed down and went without further fuss.”
“But how can you imagine—”
“There are things you don’t know, Will!” Delamere interrupted forcefully. “Olwen and I haven’t been getting on lately. Since Henry was born. To put it plainly, she resents my time with you. She wants me at the manor most of the time and at Rhuddlan a short time, not the other way around as it is now.”
“Oh…” Longsword asked tentatively, “What do you want?”
The growing silence wasn’t a good sign, he thought, heart sinking. But then Delamere said, “I want both. I want to be here and I want to be there. I want to be with her the way she was when she was happy. I know she isn’t happy now. She doesn’t complain or nag but I know it, from her silence. She resents Rhuddlan and you and she’s annoyed with me…” He shook his head slowly. “And I just don’t know what to do about it.”
Longsword didn’t answer. Delamere raised the skin to his lips and drank. He passed it up to the other man and stared down to the darkened end of the bench. “When we were standing at the bottom of that hill, watching that house burn and the women scream and the animals being slaughtered and the garden trampled, all I could think was how horrified Olwen would be to know I had done something like that to innocent people. She would hate me for it.”
Longsword wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “It’s war, Richard,” he said matter-of-factly. “It had to be done to flush out Rhirid. Besides, you didn’t do anything—you just sat on your horse and watched.”
“That means nothing and you know it, Will!” Delamere said sharply. He lowered his voice. “Don’t you understand what I’m saying? It was us and them. Not getting along peacefully but one side murdering and burning and the other throwing rocks. And Olwen would see herself as them. She’s Welsh, Will.” He drew a deep breath and let it out unsteadily. “To tell you the truth, I think being unhappy with us—with me—she would jump at the opportunity to be with them—which is what she did when Rhirid came calling.”
Although he had the utmost faith in his friend’s power of logic, particularly in the instances where it involved women, Longsword thought Delamere sounded so bereft and hopeless that he felt bound to boost his confidence. “She’ll be back,” he said firmly. They were the same words he’d repeated to himself over and over those first few days after Gwalaes’ departure.
Delamere looked at him, unconvinced. “Do you know what frightens me the most, Will? The thought of finally finding her—and hearing her say she’d rather stay where she was than come back to live with me.”