Chapter Thirteen
Meg
"I'm so cold, Llywelyn," I said. We'd finally made it to the castle hill and wended our way up and around the long road to the castle gate.
"I know, cariad," he said.
Humphrey stopped the horse and Llywelyn, dismounting in an instant, plucked me off of her. I'd been shivering badly for the last fifteen minutes, my limbs numb. I stuffed my hands between my thighs to warm them but because my legs were so cold, it didn't help. With Goronwy carrying Anna and Llywelyn carrying me, we crossed the crooked and slanted bailey to a tower.
Upon entering the hall, a wave of warmth swamped us. I wanted to crawl right into the massive fireplace near the high table, but Llywelyn whisked me through the great hall and down the stairs to the kitchen level-a similar arrangement to both Cricieth and the manor we'd stayed in. I didn't see much of the great hall, as I was fighting tears now. My muscles had relaxed in the warmth and I was losing the tight control I'd kept on my emotions during the last hours of fear, captivity, and rescue.
A fire blazed in the grate of the chamber to which Llywelyn brought me. I was stunned to see that it was a genuine bath room. A giant wooden tub, full of water, sat in the center of the room. The men Llywelyn had sent ahead had done their job. They'd warned the castellan that we were coming and explained what we needed.
Llywelyn pulled at the blankets, walked to the tub, and set me down. Dismissing, the servants, he stripped off my breeches and jersey before I could protest and dropped me into the tub. I didn't have the energy to be horrified and instead allowed the warmth of the water to seep through me. I leaned my head back and took in a long, deep breath.
"Where's Mommy?"
I peeked over the edge of the tub. "Here, Sweetie. Mommy's going to have a bath."
"Don't forget to wash behind your ears," Anna said, and I found myself smiling and fighting tears at the same time at the seriousness in her voice.
"Excuse me, my lord," Goronwy said from the doorway. He bowed and took Anna's hand. I leaned back in the tub again with a sigh, and then the latch to the door closed with a click.
Llywelyn walked back over to me. "Close your eyes."
I watched through eyes at half-mast as he settled himself on a stool and rested his arms across the rail of the tub, and then closed them completely. "I knew you'd follow. But I didn't see how you could reach the shore in time," I said.
"We didn't," Llywelyn said. "I feared that we wouldn't, and when I realized that we were too late, when Dafydd's men pushed off and started rowing, I felt my own impotence. I could have strangled my brother with my bare hands."
"He's not a nice man," I said. I turned my head to look at Llywelyn, who had his chin on his hands and was watching me too.
"He's a dangerous child," Llywelyn said. "As a prince of Wales, even a discredited one, men follow him because of his father, and because I have not noised far and wide how much I distrust him."
"And now? What will you do?"
Llywelyn pursed his lips. I waited for his answer, too tired now to really even care. "I don't know," he said, finally. "I will have to discuss it with my counselors."
"I'm safe. He'll argue there's no harm done."
"You are safe," Llywelyn said, "by your own efforts and no thanks to him. But good men died at the Gap and that I cannot forgive."
"Do you think he really meant you to die?"
"What do you think?"
I thought back to my encounters with Dafydd, including his assertion of loyalty at Cricieth. "Dafydd says one thing and does another. I think he wouldn't do the deed himself, but he wouldn't grieve at your loss and he wouldn't be above conspiring with someone else to ensure your death."
"Do you know a man by his words or by his actions?" Llywelyn said. "The priests say that a man can't reach heaven by good deeds alone, but I would say that even if that's true, evil deeds will lead a man to hell."
"Cyn wired ?'r pader," I said.
"As true as the Lord's prayer," Llywelyn repeated. He reached out a hand to me and I brought mine from the water to give it to him. He gazed at me steadily. "The water is warm, Meg, and I'm tempted."
He never called me that, preferring the Welsh Marged. I met his eyes, feeling a little panicked. I'd as good as admitted I was his. He had to know it. He stood to loom over me and slid his hand behind my neck so he could kiss me. I could have drowned in him, more than in the sea.
He released me. "But it wouldn't be right today. I'll send a woman to help you."
"Anna," I said, though without urgency. Goronwy had her. Within minutes she would have made herself the castle pet.
"I'll see to her. Don't you worry." He kissed the top of my head and strode from the room.
Thinking that I was warm enough, and a little restless after that kiss, truth be told, I pushed up to get out of the tub but my legs wouldn't hold me. Dizzy, nauseous, and breathing hard, I sank back into the water and closed my eyes.
We move out from the shore: ten yards, twenty, thirty. And then my heart catches in my throat. Llywelyn and his men have crested the hill beyond the dunes. I bounce off my seat but Dafydd pulls me down and pumps his fist at his brother. In the same instant that Bevyn enters the sea, one of the horses in the boat, perhaps not as tightly tethered as the others, shifts. Dafydd staggers sideways; I throw off his cloak and dive over the side.
I stay under as long as I can but finally bob up, twenty yards from the boat. Dafydd shakes his fist at me and shouts: "You have chosen the wrong brother!"
Dafydd hadn't understood it at all. It wasn't that I'd chosen Llywelyn. I didn't think it was possible to choose Llywelyn. Llywelyn chose whom he liked, and the woman either went along with it or she didn't.
What I'd done, rather, was recognize that I couldn't passively sit by and allow myself to be carried off by Dafydd. Even if I didn't have Llywelyn a hundred yards away on the beach, Dafydd was a man it was easy for me to say no to. Dafydd was too much like Trev for me not to recognize it.