IT took Ranulf a month to recover, and another month until he began to feel like his old self again. Each time that he broached the subject of his return to England, his uncle and cousins raised such strenuous objections that he let the matter drop. It was easy enough to do, for he did not know where he wanted to go once he left Trefriw. He was content to let the days slide by, and before he knew it, the summer was slipping by, too.
THERE was much about Welsh law that caused Ranulf to marvel, for this small, mountainous land was a crucible of political heresy. Of all the states in Christendom, in Wales alone did secular law take precedence over canon law, and the Welsh diverged from their Church’s teachings on a number of controversial issues. The Welsh took the provocative view that a failed marriage was a mistake to be remedied, and offered generous grounds for dissolution. Even more remarkably, women were given the same right as men to walk away from an unhappy marriage. Maude would have loved Wales, Ranulf thought, for Welsh women could not be forced into marriage against their will, nor did the husband invariably get custody of the children when a marriage did end, as was always the case elsewhere.
Of particular interest to Ranulf were the laws regarding illegitimacy. Here, too, the Welsh were breaking new ground. In Wales, unlike the rest of Christendom, if a bastard-born child was acknowledged by the father, that child then enjoyed equal status with those children born within wedlock. This staggered Ranulf. Robert could have claimed the crown if England had such an enlightened law, and how much suffering they all could have been spared if only that had been so! But he was thankful that another Welsh law was not in force across the border, for in Wales, a youth reached his legal majority at age fourteen. Lord help them all if his nephew Harry could have claimed to be lawfully on his own at fourteen!
It was this latter law which explained the presence in Rhodri’s household of several boisterous teenage boys. A Welsh youngster might legally reach manhood at fourteen, but he still had a lot to learn, and so it was the Welsh practice to place him in a local lord’s service to receive his training in arms, similar to the English squire’s apprenticeship. Sixteen-year-old Padarn had been with Rhodri only a fortnight, and was still settling in. Ranulf could not help noticing how uncomfortable the youth was in Rhiannon’s presence, and when his cousins wanted to show him their favorite spot for an outdoor meal, he picked Padarn to accompany them, hoping that time spent with Rhiannon would allay the boy’s qualms.
Padarn and Eleri had raced their horses ahead, leaving Ranulf and Rhiannon to follow at a more sedate pace. Rhiannon was riding pillion behind Ranulf, and she soon announced that they were nearing the waterfall. The sound of rushing water came clearly to Ranulf’s ears, too, but he could not resist teasing her about her “second sight,” for that had become a running joke between them. Rhiannon agreed that second sight was indeed a useful skill, especially for those who lacked “first sight,” and he reined in his stallion to look upon this waterfall his cousins so loved.
Rhaeadr Ewynnol it was called, “the Foaming Fall,” and well worthy of the name on this mid-August Friday, for the river was running high after a fortnight of steady rain. The dropoff was not steep, but spectacular in the sunlight, as churning white water spilled over mossy green rocks, down into a dark emerald pool below. Ranulf thought it a sight to behold, and felt a pang of regret that Rhiannon could see it only in memory. Helping her to dismount, he tethered his mount to an overhanging branch, and then cried out in alarm, “Rhiannon, stop!”
To his surprise, both his cousins laughed. “What did you fear,” Rhiannon asked, “that I would walk right over the cliff? I can tell as I approach the edge by the movement of the air.”
She’d long since established her credibility with Ranulf, but Padarn looked skeptical, and Eleri saw that. “Go on, Rhiannon,” she urged. “Show them how you can sense things they can only see.”
As Ranulf and Padarn looked on in puzzlement, Eleri led her sister away from the bluff, and then gently spun her around. They watched as she started to cross the clearing, but when she headed toward a large oak tree, only Eleri’s vehement gesture kept Ranulf from calling out a warning. It was not needed, for Rhiannon stopped just in time.
“There is something ahead of me,” she said, and after reaching out and encountering the scratchy feel of bark, she grinned suddenly, triumphantly. But she could not explain to them how she’d known of the tree’s presence, able to say only that she’d sensed an obstacle looming before her. She called it her “inner vision,” and whilst it was not always reliable, she admitted, especially with objects close to the ground, it had spared her many a bruising fall, for certes.
Padarn was so captivated by this mysterious skill of Rhiannon’s that he had to try to master it, too, and keeping his eyes tightly shut, he lurched around the clearing, crashing into trees and stumbling into thickets like a stag in rut. He was, of course, showing off for Eleri, but he got more than he bargained for when he tumbled headfirst into a blackthorn bush. Once she stopped laughing, though, Eleri was so solicitous that Ranulf suspected the boy counted his scratches well earned.
Spreading their blanket under Rhiannon’s oak, they unpacked their basket. Eleri had wheedled their cook into yielding up roast chicken, thick chunks of goat cheese, ripe plums, and cider; there was even a round loaf of newly baked bread, primarily for Ranulf’s sake, for the Welsh did not eat nearly as much bread as their English neighbors. Borrowing Ranulf’s dagger to dig a thorn out of Padarn’s thumb, Eleri began teasing him about his “lamentable lack of inner vision.”
Padarn bridled, pointing out that “inner vision was a poor trade, indeed, for the loss of sight,” and then flushed deeply, glancing toward Rhiannon and then away.
When he began to stammer apologies, Rhiannon insisted it was not necessary. “You did but speak the truth, lad, for none would choose darkness over light. The choice is to live in that darkness with some measure of grace and contentment…or not. I am more fortunate than many, for I can take comfort in the love of my family, in my faith in God’s Mercy, and in the knowledge that at least my blindness has spared me the need to learn embroidery.”
Padarn sputtered, choking on his cider. Eleri poured him another cup, adding that Rhiannon never had to weed their garden, either, and Ranulf chimed in with a reminder of all the money Rhiannon saved her father on candles. When Padarn joined, somewhat sheepishly, in their laughter, Ranulf knew he’d been right about the boy; he was worth the extra effort.
Padarn was studying Rhiannon intently, as if seeing her truly for the first time. “May I ask you a question…a serious one? What is the worst of being blind?”
Ranulf had wondered that himself. He expected Rhiannon to need time to think it over, but she answered immediately. “Other people. It would be much easier to accept my blindness if only they could accept it, too. But they shy away as if it were contagious. Or else they assume that since I cannot see, I cannot hear, either, and they shout as if I were quite deaf.”
“Or they do not speak to her at all,” Eleri said indignantly. “Rhiannon will be standing right at my side, but I’ll be the one they ask, ‘Has she always been blind?’ God Above, but the world is full of fools!” And in the clearing by Rhaeadr Ewynnol, there was none to dispute her.
Later, after the food had been eaten, Eleri and Padarn set off to hunt for wild blackberries. Ranulf found a hedgerow of blooming honeysuckle and collected a handful of the fragrant blossoms for Rhiannon. “What else?” he asked quietly, and she understood at once.
“Waking up and not knowing if it is day or night. Even now I find that disquieting. I miss seeing smiles, for they are conversational clues, are they not? I also miss seeing things which cannot be touched, like butterflies or a night sky. But I think the dreams were the most troubling, Ranulf, the ones in which I was able to see again. They’d seem so real, so very real, full of color and light. But then I’d awaken and I was still blind.”
“I had dreams like that after my mother died,” Ranulf sai
d. “Waking up was like losing her all over again.”
“Mourning dreams,” Rhiannon said pensively. “I’d never thought of it that way, but you are right. I was mourning my lost sight as you mourned your mother.”
It occurred to Ranulf that they’d been about the same age, too. “You mentioned color in those early dreams, Rhiannon. Can you remember it, then?”
“I think so,” she said, but she amended that, then, to, “Well, I remember red. But the other colors have faded. Papa tries to prod my memory, but he cannot seem to describe color in terms that are not…colorful.” She smiled, so swiftly that Ranulf almost missed it. “He talks about bright and dark and pale, which is not very helpful.”
Ranulf watched her breathe in the scent of honeysuckle. How to explain color? “Give me your hand,” he said. Once they were on their feet, he led her away from the tree, out into a patch of summer sunlight. “Tilt your face up,” he said, “and tell me what you feel.”
“The sun,” she said promptly. “I feel its warmth.”
“What you are feeling,” he said, “is yellow. Green is the sound the wind makes, rustling through the trees. If we walked down to the riverbank and you put your hand in the water, you’d feel the cool color blue. To remember red, you need only stand in front of the hearth. And a winter snowfall, silent and cold and pure…that is white.”
Rhiannon was delighted. “Do not stop now,” she entreated. “What of purple? Silver?”
“Next you’ll be asking after plaid,” Ranulf joked, but once they were settled back on the blanket, he did his best to oblige her. “Do you know what a sable pelt feels like…soft and lush? Well, that is purple. Silver is…silk. Brown is a steady, dependable color…like dogs.”
Rhiannon laughed and clapped her hands. “Let me,” she cried. “If dogs are brown, then cats are…green!” Ranulf laughed, too, and they expanded the game, deciding that harp music was green, too, that anger was red and pride blue. Ranulf did not know whether he’d actually helped Rhiannon to form a mental image of these colors, but he was sure he’d given her something she’d had too little of—fun.
Sharing the last of the cider with him, she shared, too, memories of her childhood. Her mother would have fetched for her, protected her, coddled her, but Rhodri would not allow it. He had encouraged her to defy the dark, to get up when she fell, to find out for herself what was possible and what was not. He’d taught her to ride, to play the harp, to turn her head in the direction of voices when she was spoken to, as a sighted child would have done. He’d taught her that she could be blind and self-reliant and proud. The great pity, Ranulf thought, was that he could not teach the rest of the world that, too.
Over these past few months, he’d told her of his own childhood, of Stephen and Maude and Robert and the war. But he’d told her nothing of his grieving or his guilt, and so he was taken utterly aback when she asked suddenly, “Ranulf, who is Annora?”
The silence lasted so long that she grew uneasy. “I did not mean to pry,” she apologized, and he reached across the blanket, patted her hand.
“You just took me by surprise, lass. How do you know about Annora?”
“I know only that you cried out her name when your fever burned so high. Even if I’d spoken French, I could not have made sense of your mumblings. But the name I did hear—often enough to remember. I can tell, though, that some wounds heal more slowly than others. We need not speak of her.”
“No,” he said, “I will tell you, Cousin Rhiannon. After all that you and your family have done for me, you have the right to know.”
And as if that secluded riverside clearing were a confessional, he told her about Annora, sparing himself nothing. She listened in silence, her thoughts hidden from him, for he’d kept his eyes upon the surging power of Rhaeadr Ewynnol until he was done. He waited, then, for her response, as an accused man might await a jury’s verdict, steeling himself for her disappointment, her condemnation, even revulsion. When he looked into her face, though, he saw only sadness.
“I am sorry,” she said at last, “for your friend’s death. I am sorry, too, that you blame yourself for it.”
“I was such a fool, Rhiannon. I truly believed that Annora would be able to divorce her husband and marry me, that wanting was enough to make it so. I never considered the consequences, not until it was too late.”
“I do not pretend to know much of such matters,” she said slowly. “But I would guess that most men—and women—share that same failing.” She hesitated. “Annora…do you still love her?”
He nodded, remembered such a gesture meant nothing to her, and said, with some reluctance, “Yes…I do.”
Rhiannon was quiet for a time. “And if you had it to do all over again, would you?”
This time his answer was immediate—and explosive. “Good God, no!”
“Well, then,” Rhiannon said, “there is hope for you yet!”
Ranulf stared at her, and then gave a startled and rueful laugh. “Who would have guessed,” he said, “that a butterfly could bite?”
“This one can,” she said tartly. “What would you have me say, that I’d want you to go on lusting after a married woman? The Lord God will forgive any sin if it is truly repented, but people who keep repeating the same sins must try His Patience for certes!”
Ranulf forgot and nodded again. “I do repent my sins, Rhiannon. And I mean to learn from my mistakes. I owe that to Gilbert.”
“I think learning from past mistakes would be a fine thing,” she said softly, and then she tilted her head, listening. “Eleri and Padarn…they are coming back.”
Ranulf heard the voices now, too, the playful bickering that passed for flirtation among the very young. “You have just enough time,” he said, “to bless me and tell me to go forth and sin no more.”
She turned her face toward him, with a smile that offered its own sort of absolution, and he reached for her hand. “Come on, Cousin,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
42
Chester Castle, England
September 1148
“MAUD?” The Earl of Chester plunged through the doorway of his bedchamber. “Where are you, girl?” Striding over to the bed, he jerked the hangings back, then glanced about in puzzlement. “Maud?” A moment later, his wife emerged from the corner privy chamber. She was fully dressed, her hair neatly braided, but she looked so pale and drawn that even her unobservant husband noticed. “Queasy again, eh?” he said, and she regarded him balefully.
“No, I spend so much time crouching over the privy hole because I like the view!”
Chester scowled, but held his peace, reminding himself that a woman had to be humored whilst she was breeding. “Well, I’ve news sure to cheer you. You’ve a visitor.”
“I’m not up to seeing anyone,” Maud said, settling herself gingerly upon the bed. “Unless it is my mother or His Holiness the Pope, tell them to come back later.”
“This is one visitor you’ll want to see,” Chester insisted, and before Maud could stop him, he opened the door, shouting into the stairwell. “Come on up!”
“Randolph!” Maud was furious, but it was too late. Already she could hear footsteps on the stairs. Reluctantly swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she pushed her husband’s arm aside when he offered his help. “You never listen,” she scolded softly, “never—Jesú!” Her morning sickness forgotten, she shot off the bed. “Ranulf!”
Chester watched with a smile as his wife and her uncle embraced. “I told you,” he said smugly, “that you’d want to see him!”
AN autumn rainstorm was drenching the Conwy Valley. Each time the door to the great hall was opened, damp drafts blew in, guttering the candles. But flickering candles were no inconvenience to Rhiannon, and she continued to sew. Eleri had pinned a strip of flat wood to the material to guide her stitches, but even so, it was slow, laborious going. “How does it look?” she asked as Eleri’s steps drew near. “Do I have to rip out this row, too? Tell me the truth.”
&
nbsp; “It does not have to be perfect,” Eleri chided, moving closer to see.
“Yes,” Rhiannon said, “it does.” Once her sister assured her that the stitches were even, she bent over her handiwork again, concentrating so diligently that she did not at first notice her stepmother’s approach.
“What are you making, Rhiannon?”
“A belt for Ranulf. He told Papa that his birthday is in November.”
“Why not let me make it for you? I could do it much faster.”
“I am sure you could, Enid,” Rhiannon said evenly. “But I want to do it myself.”
“Are you so sure he is coming back?”
“Of course he is. He promised he would.”
“It might be better if he does not.”
Rhiannon stopped sewing. “I thought you liked Ranulf,” she said in surprise.
“I do like him. We all do…too much, I fear.”
“I do not understand.”
“We welcomed him into our home, our hearts. It was easy enough to do, for he is very likable. He filled an empty place at our table…Cadell’s place. But he is not Cadell and this is not his world. Sooner or later, he will choose to return to the world he knows.”
“That need not be so,” Rhiannon protested. “He seems happy here. He could decide to stay.”
“Ah, lambkin…you are fooling yourself.”
That was Rhodri’s pet name for Rhiannon. She never liked her stepmother to use it, especially in such solicitous, sympathetic tones. Theirs was an awkward relationship, not friends, no longer enemies…although that had not been true in the beginning. Rhiannon had, by her own admission, reacted badly to her father’s decision to remarry. Her mother was just dead a year and Rhiannon was not ready to accept another woman in Nesta’s place. Nor had Enid known how to deal with a blind stepdaughter. Her kindnesses seemed condescending, her good intentions invariably went astray, and her patience hovered on the border between sainthood and martyrdom; only her bafflement rang true.