“I’d hoped to see you two years ago,” Hugh said, “when my lady Ellen and I stopped at Evesham. But by then you were already at Shrewsbury. I always meant to find my way here and pay a visit, but somehow I never did. I got married, and then the war…” He let the rest of the sentence go, for Damian was smiling at Caitlin, making the natural assumption that she was the wife in question. Hugh saw no point in correcting him; how could he ever explain about Eluned?
Damian acknowledged the introductions with enthusiasm, then puzzled Caitlin by dropping diffident hints about “blessings” and “boons.” When she realized he was talking about babies, she said forthrightly, “No, not yet, but we hope to have a bevy of them ere we’re done.” Remembering to add, “God willing,” for she did not want Damian to think her brazen; many monks, she knew, saw women only as Delilahs and Jezebels, weak vessels born to do the Devil’s bidding.
But Damian did not share the darker suspicions of some of his brethren and was delighted by Caitlin’s candor. “Fortune has indeed favored you, Hugh…and I was not at all sure it would be so, was not even sure you were still amongst the living.”
“I’ve never been much for writing letters,” Hugh said apologetically, and Damian laughed.
“Indeed not, lad! What did I get—two in twelve years? One telling me you were not coming back to the abbey, that you were off to Italy with Bran de Montfort. Then a seven-year silence until, lo and behold, I learn you’re at Worcester, about to go into Wales with Eleanor de Montfort and her Welsh Prince! I thought of you when war broke out, Hugh, said many a prayer for your safe-keeping.”
Hugh was feeling more remorseful by the moment that he’d been so neglectful a friend. “After my lady died in childbed, I left Wales,” he explained, “and returned to France, to Lord Amaury de Montfort’s service.” Now that Wales had been introduced into the conversation, he didn’t want to let the opportunity slip away, and said hastily, “As hard as it was to lose my lady, I am grateful she did not live to see Prince Llewelyn slain, her baby stolen away by the English King. It is only to be expected, though, that people saw it differently on this side of the border. I suppose there was great rejoicing when the war was won and Davydd ap Gruffydd taken by the King’s soldiers.”
“There was, indeed, and with good reason, Hugh. Whenever Wales goes up in flames, we in Shrewsbury are like to get scorched, too. I pray to God that this was the last war we’ll ever fight with the Welsh, may they learn to live in peace.” But Damian was at heart still Simon de Montfort’s disciple, and he then continued rashly, “Though I’ll admit to feeling some sympathy for the Welsh Prince, as I would for any man going up against Edward Plantagenet. He may well be blessed by God on the battlefield, but I still believe that England’s honor died with Earl Simon at Evesham.”
“Ah, Damian, you’ve not changed at all, courting calamity with every breath you draw,” Hugh said wryly. But Caitlin was growing impatient, and he saw it. “The Welsh Prince—you mean Llewelyn? Not Davydd?”
“Llewelyn, of course. That brother of his was a bold knave, for certes, but a knave nonetheless.”
Hugh frowned, but Caitlin did not catch it, Damian’s use of the past tense. “The trial is to be held here, is it not? In Shrewsbury?”
“Done and over with, Lady Caitlin, here in our Chapter House. He stood right there,” Damian said, pointing toward the lectern, “and mocked them all. He showed no contrition, no repentance, I’m sorry to say, went to his death defiant to the last, sacrificing his immortal soul for the sake of his accursed pride.”
“He…is dead?”
“Oh, yes, my lady. The execution was done the very next morn…last Saturday at the High Cross. But I was glad of the haste, for it was a mercy that there was no delay, that he did not have days to dwell upon the horror awaiting him.”
Caitlin had moved away from them. Hugh started to follow, saddened but not surprised that it should end like this. But Damian’s last words stopped him in his tracks. Caitlin was already turning back to face the monk. “What do you mean?” she asked, and there was a tremor in her voice that belied the matter-of-fact way she added, “He was…hanged, was he not?”
Damian sighed. “Hanging is indeed the punishment for treason, but that was not enough for the King. He took a truly terrible vengeance upon the Welshman, my lady. Trust me when I say you do not want to hear more.”
“I have to know,” Caitlin said, with enough intensity to baffle Damian, to make him uneasy. He looked to Hugh for guidance, and when Hugh nodded grimly, he told them—as briefly as he could—how Davydd had died.
When he was done, Hugh whispered, “Jesus God.” Caitlin said nothing at all, but as she listened to Damian, the blood drained from her face. When Hugh would have embraced her, she pulled away, shaking her head. Hugh let her go…until she stumbled against the lectern, unable to see it for her tears. He reached her then, in two strides, gathered her into his arms, and held her close as she wept. But he was learning to know her as he’d known no one else. “Do you want to be alone for a while, lass?” And as he expected, she nodded. With Caitlin, sometimes the best way he could show his love was to step back, to wait. But it was also—for him—the hardest way.
Clouds had begun to gather overhead, and the cloisters had lost the sun; the sky above Hugh’s head was mottled in grey-and-blue patches. He stared up at it, blindly, and then Damian was beside him, saying in quiet reproach, “I fear, Hugh, that you have not been entirely honest with me. What was Davydd ap Gruffydd to your wife?”
He’d not meant to confide in Damian; silence seemed safer for them all. But he could not lie to the other man, owed the monk a half-truth at the very least. “I ought to have told you,” he admitted. “They were…kin.”
Damian looked so stricken that Hugh felt a pang of guilt; he had no right to involve Damian in this, no right at all. The monk sat down abruptly on one of the carrel benches. “God forgive me,” he said. “But I did not know…”
Caitlin was sitting on the floor by the lectern. She’d feared for a time that she’d be sick, but it had passed. She still felt hollow, shaken to the very depths of her soul, and she sensed that nothing would ever be quite the same again. She no longer wept, and when Hugh came back, she let him lift her to her feet, lead her toward a bench. She was glad when he did not try to talk, for what was there to say?
“My lady…” She’d not noticed Damian, but he was there now, too, offering a cup filled with dark liquid. She did not want it, but it seemed to matter to him, and so she let him put the cup in her hands. “I am so sorry, my lady, so very sorry! Had I only known you were Welsh, I would never have spoken of his death. If it is of any comfort, he…he did die well. He showed great courage, Lady Caitlin. I know that must not matter much now, but—”
“It matters,” Caitlin said. “It mattered to him.”
Damian nodded slowly. “Again, I do regret being the one to tell you. I would to God you never had to know. Hugh said that he was…was your kinsman?”
Caitlin looked up at the monk. She’d thought her weeping was done, but tears were suddenly streaking her face again. “He was my father,” she said.
They stopped on Bridge Street, stood gazing across at the castle’s formidable defenses, its soaring towers and battlements. The moment was finally upon them, but not as they’d planned it would be. It was to have been Caitlin, posing as a nun to get into Shrewsbury Castle. But now it was Hugh who wore the disguise, the black cowl of the Benedictines, Damian’s contribution to their quest. And the citadel rising up before them was the royal castle of Chester, the prisoner within, Davydd’s widow.
“Hugh…” Caitlin was frowning, fighting the urge to reach up and adjust his hood; that was too intimate a touch for broad daylight on a busy Chester street. “Make sure you keep your hair hidden,” she fretted, “lest they see you lack the tonsure. Cariad, it is not too late to change your mind…”
“Caitlin, we agreed that it was to be me. There is no way on God’s earth that I’d let
you enter one of Edward’s castles, not now that we’ve seen into the darkness of his soul.” Her frown deepened, but she did not argue, for she knew it would be futile. Hugh brushed his fingers against her hand in a brief, surreptitious caress before looking over at the third member of their enterprise. “Trevor, will you take my lady back to the inn? It is safer that you await my return there, not here on the street.”
Caitlin began to protest, saw it was useless; both men were united against her in this. “Go with God, Hugh,” she said, and she and Trevor watched then, as he started across the street, dodging carts and dogs and small boys playing tag, heading for the castle.
Hugh and Caitlin had concocted a plausible pretext, that he’d been sent by the King’s lady mother, now residing at the Benedictine nunnery at Amesbury. Elizabeth was the King’s cousin, after all. Was it not reasonable that the pious dowager Queen might pity her plight, at least enough to offer her the spiritual solace of the Church? As he approached the drawbridge, Hugh hoped fervently that it would seem so to the deputy constable of Chester Castle.
He was well aware that he was now deep in enemy territory, for Chester’s Justiciar was Reginald de Grey and the castle constable the Earl of Lincoln, new master of Davydd’s stronghold at Dinbych. But his fears proved needless. His mission was accepted without question, even approved. Whether the King’s mother pitied Elizabeth or not, it was soon apparent to Hugh that the men guarding her did. He had heard disquieting tales of Elizabeth’s earlier captivity; it was said she’d been brought to Rhuddlan Castle in chains, and he was thankful that she seemed to have found a kinder confinement here at Chester.
He did not know what to expect, sure only that Caitlin must be spared this encounter, and not just for her safety’s sake. His first reaction was one of relief, for the room was decently furnished, a small chamber, but one with a window and a hearth. Highborn prisoners were usually allowed such basic amenities; even Amaury had not been denied a bed and charcoal brazier at Corfe Castle. But Damian had told him of the harsh conditions of Davydd’s confinement, and he’d needed to see for himself that Elizabeth was not being held in a dungeon. Why, though, was she being held at all?
Hugh had not known Elizabeth well. He did remember her age—twenty-five—having learned by chance that she was just two years and one day younger than he. He was braced now to find that she’d aged years in a matter of months, for how many women ever suffered the losses that had been hers? But he found, instead, a lost child. She wore no wimple or veil, and her long fair hair trailed down her back, loose and limp like a little girl’s. Her gown seemed to have been made for another woman, swallowing her up in billowing folds, for she’d not had weight to spare in the best of times. Hugh had once heard Davydd call her “angel,” and thought it an apt endearment, even in jest. But she was earthbound now for certes, far from Heaven’s grace, and as his eyes took in her pallor, her frailty, her betrayed faith, Hugh understood why she’d roused the protective urges of the castle garrison.
“It was kind of you to come, Brother Mark,” Elizabeth said politely, but her blue eyes were blank, without hope or even curiosity.
Hugh mumbled the first piety to come to mind as the guard headed for the door. As soon as they were alone, he pulled back his hood. “I am no monk, my lady. Do you not recognize me? Hugh de Whitton, one of Lady Ellen’s household knights.”
Elizabeth showed no surprise at his revelation, and not much interest, either. “Did I know you?” she asked.
Hugh was momentarily at a loss. “My lady, may we sit down?”
“Of course,” she said, looking vaguely about the chamber as if she’d never before noticed its accommodations. Hugh touched her elbow, guided her toward the lone bench. She startled him then, by saying, “I do remember you. You’re Caitlin’s lover.”
“No,” he said gently, “her husband.” He could not tell, though, if Elizabeth understood. She did not seem dazed, just distant. As if she’d sought sanctuary, he thought, but not in a church, in some secret, inaccessible corner of her soul. He was not sure how to coax her out, not even sure if he should. And so they sat by the smoldering hearth, and he told her about his marriage to Caitlin, about their manor in Angoulême, about any topic that seemed safe, far removed from the life she’d lost.
It was to be an afternoon that would haunt his memory for years. Slowly, hesitantly, she’d begun to venture out of her sheltering silence, to talk, in fits and starts at first, of her broken family. She could not speak of her sons. She tried, once, and the words would not come. But eventually she did talk to him of her daughter and Gwenllian. The nuns would be kind to them, she said, surely they would? And Hugh assured her quite truthfully that Gwladys and Gwenllian would likely become the convent darlings, pampered and cosseted by nuns who did not see themselves as gaolers or their tiny charges as prisoners of the Crown.
“And at least they will grow up together, will be company for each other,” Elizabeth said, “the last daughters of the royal House of Wales.”
Hugh knew better, for he knew Gwenllian had been taken to Sempringham and Gwladys to Sixhills. But he agreed again, did what he could to feed Elizabeth’s malnourished hopes. She had risen by now, was moving restlessly about the chamber. He remembered then, to give her the few comforts he’d smuggled in under his habit: a small metal mirror, a comb, and a pater noster.
Elizabeth gazed intently into the mirror, as if seeing a stranger. She fingered the rosary beads. And then she asked softly, “Is it true that Davydd is dead?”
This was the moment Hugh had been most dreading. “Yes, my lady. They told you, then?”
“Yes,” she said, “the deputy constable and the chaplain. They said Davydd had been hanged in Shrewsbury on the Saturday after Michaelmas. That is so, Hugh? They did not lie to me?”
Mute, he could only shake his head. She did not know! His relief was so intense, so overwhelming that he was slow to realize she’d been given a reprieve, no more than that, one to last only as long as her confinement did. And there was no longer any reason to hold her captive now that Davydd was dead. For Hugh never doubted that Elizabeth’s maltreatment was done to punish her husband. Now that Davydd was beyond Edward’s vengeance, Elizabeth would eventually be set free. Then she would learn the truth about Davydd’s death, and God help her when she did. But she could never have borne it now, and Hugh felt a rush of gratitude toward the men who’d lied to her, who’d shown more mercy than their King.
“They told me Davydd died bravely. But I knew that already.” Elizabeth sought to smile at Hugh, not convincingly. “Davydd… Davydd would have laughed at the Devil on his way to Hell.”
“Yes,” Hugh said hoarsely, “he would, indeed, my lady.” Her composure made him uneasy, for it put him in mind of ice skimming over a pond, too brittle to bear weight. He was amazed that she could bring herself to speak of Davydd so soon after his execution. But then he realized that this widow of a fortnight had been mourning Davydd for months. And as he watched Elizabeth pacing before the hearth, he understood, too, why her eyes were dry; she had no more tears left to shed.
“Lady Elizabeth…is there nothing I can do for you?” He comprehended the emptiness of his offer as soon as it was made, but he could no longer bear witness to her pain, not without seeking to alleviate it.
Elizabeth stopped, stood unmoving for a long moment. “You can tell me why,” she said at last. “I would to God that someone could tell me why!”
“My lady, if only I could! I can tell you that the war was bound to come, for Wales was too small a land to share a border with England. I can even tell you when the war was lost, on the eleventh of December at dusk. But I cannot tell you why God let it happen—”
“No,” Elizabeth said, “that is not what I want to know. Why did Edward take my sons away? Can you tell me that, Hugh? Can anyone?”
He shook his head again, unable to meet her eyes. “I knew,” Elizabeth said, in a voice no longer steady, “that Davydd was doomed. We both knew it, toward the
last. But I could not leave him. Even if my babe had not been due… How could I ever have forsaken him when he needed me the most? But I did not knowingly sacrifice my sons for him, I swear I did not! When they get older, will they understand that? Or hate me for failing them?”
“Lady Elizabeth, no! You have nothing to reproach yourself for!”
“I truly did not believe they were at peril. What threat could a five-year-old boy pose to a King? Or his three-year-old brother? I never once thought that he’d imprison them, for were they not his own cousins? Had I not made this marriage at his command?”
It was all spilling out, in a scalding surge. But even now, there were no tears. “If Edward was not willing to set them free, could he not have pledged them to God as he did my daughter? Or raised them at his court? They were just little boys, would have learned whatever lessons he chose to teach them. I’ve thought about it, you see, I’ve thought about it until I feared I’d go stark mad, with the questions chasing round and round in my head, never stopping. Why did he do it, Hugh? Even if he truly believed that he had no choice but Bristol Castle, why did he not let me go with them, then? Why?”
Hugh could think of only one reason why Edward would have torn Elizabeth away from her sons, and it was one that he believed was deserving of damnation. But he did not want to dwell upon the English King’s vengefulness, for that would only intensify Elizabeth’s fears for Llelo and Owain. Instead, he told her now of his arrival in Bristol, and then he began to lie, he who’d always scorned falsehoods, telling her that the boys had been seen playing in the castle bailey, that he’d heard they had comfortable lodgings and indulgent attendants. Elizabeth listened, saying little, and thanked him when he was done, but whether that meant she believed him, he did not know.