‘Then do we have a bargain? That we will be all and everything to each other, no matter our differences, no matter how the world pulls us apart, no matter what awaits us beyond this mountain paradise?’
‘We have a bargain, kind sir. And I believe we should seal it with a kiss.’
So saying she ran her hands through his wet hair, tilting his head to hers, finding his mouth with her own, and kissing him deeply, longingly, hungrily, until she felt his own hunger matching hers, and he pulled her beneath the swirling water.
Brynach stirred on the unyielding earth floor, trying but failing to lie in a way that did not pain his damaged back or broken feet. Had he not been a battle seasoned soldier, his treatment at the hands of his captors might have finished him. As it was he had endured their brutality, their torture, and the privations of incarceration. His badly healed bones troubled him, and his stomach cramped from hunger. He knew he was weakened andthat they preferred to keep him that way. When he had taken an arrow at Talgar it had stopped him, prevented him from fighting. He still carried the burden of guilt and failure at not being able to protect Lady Rhiannon. He had served her father for many years and it was his dearest wish to continue that service to what remained of his master’s family. At least he knew she had escaped, although he had not been certain at the time. His injury had enabled the Norman soldiers to take him without a fight, much to his own fury. He had expected to be summarily despatched and had waited for the fall of foreign steel against his neck. But the blow never came. The soldiers, foremost among them the one Rhiannon had referred to as Stew-face, had seen more value in presenting him as a prize to their master. The arrow had been removed with neither care nor pity and the wound cauterised with an iron from the smithy’s forge. He had been taken up to the great house and secured in a dungeon, left with water and gruel to live or die, at his captor’s pleasure. It was not until two days later that the new Lord of Brycheiniog, Hubert de Chapelle, had come in person to question him. Brynach had known at once who he was, for the man, though statuesque and vigorous, was ruined by the lack of a nose. Even the finely crafted silver replacement he wore could not return to him his handsome visage.Rhiannon’s story of how she had come to be in the well was known by everyone in the mountain hideout.
The Norman Baron had demanded to know the whereabouts of the mountain community, the number of fighting men that dwelled there, and whether or not the woman seen with him in Talgar was the daughter of Llewellyn ap Ioreth? His tone had suggested that revenge was uppermost on his mind. He was enraged to think the girl who had so disfigured him, and whom he had left for dead, was in fact alive. But Brynach would not talk. Would not tell de Chapelle what he wanted to hear. Not when they beat him. Not when they crushed his toes with pincers. Not when they pressed hot irons to the soles of his feet. Not when they half drowned him. Stew-face took over the job of torturer with loathsome glee, but even he failed to break the old soldier’s spirit. It was at a point during the third day of his ordeal when the apothecary declared him to be close to death that the trials ceased. De Chapelle had him thrown in a cell and left there, kept on so little food that come spring, when the snows had gone and the paths to the mountain clear again, he would not have the strength to resist further torment.
So it was with some surprise that, with the morning warmed by a March sun, Brynach found himself being led not to the place of pain, but up the winding stonestairs, out of the building, and onto the soft green grass outside the Great House. It took tremendous effort to force his legs to work adequately, to remember how to move in an open space. Months of being shut in a dark cell had left him mole-like in his vision, so that he had to shield his eyes from the brightness of the day. Even so, it was a joy to be free of his confines, released from the grim hold of grey stone, and to feel the fresh spring breeze upon his face again. He was led to a cart and ordered to climb onto the back of it. He was so weak that he was unable to do so without assistance. When at last he was in the cart, a soldier tied his hands to it so that he could neither jump nor fall out. Brynach looked about him, wondering what fate held for him, unable to tell from the demeanour of the soldiers whether or not he was being led to his death. Even Stew-face kept himself at a distance, revealing nothing. He reasoned that the Baron would not have kept him alive all winter only to have him killed now. He had a plan for him, a purpose, of that he was certain.
The door of the Great House was thrown open and de Chapelle strode out. He wore a silver breastplate over expensive chain mail, between which was a tabard of red and white. The sun flashed off the silver he wore on his face. He strode to the cart and regarded Brynach will ill concealed repulsion.
‘We are going on a journey, you and I. We will travel back through the valley pass to Cwmdu, to the place where thatCymrubitch should have had the decency to die where I left her. There we will camp. And there I will give you one last chance to tell me the location of the she devil and her band of old men and children.’
Without waiting for any manner of response, he turned on his heel, barking commands at his soldiers, who scurried this way and that to do his bidding. His fine chestnut horse was fetched and he mounted it, putting on his helmet as he did so. The helmet had been cleverly designed with a nose piece to cover the one he wore beneath it, disguising the truth of his disfigurement. Brynach believed that such a man would never overcome the injury, even though it did not stop him fighting. He would sooner have lost an arm, he thought, than see himself as so reduced, so ridiculous. Brynach also knew de Chapelle would never forgive Rhiannon. He had waited with cold fury two winters for the chance to have his vengeance. Now that the time had come, he would stop at nothing to see the woman who had so damaged him dead.
The cart lurched forwards, forcing Brynach to grasp the side with his bound hands. Every jolt and bump on their route reminded him that he was in no state to fight his way free of his situation. Nor could he withstandtorture as he had done before. De Chapelle had known what he was about when he played the longer game of starving his captive. With a heavy heart, Brynach came to the realisation that, when his ordeal resumed, he would not be able to withhold the information they wanted. This knowledge brought with it fresh shame and great sadness. Had he been able to end his own life then and there to save his Lady, he would have done so. Alas, no such release would be afforded him; the Baron’s soldiers would make sure of that. There were twelve of them following behind the cart. Ahead, three more rode with their commander. As the group made its slow progress out of the village, Brynach forced himself not to give in to despair. He reasoned that if he could endure solitude and starvation he could surely draw deep on his reserves of courage to find a way to yet help Lord Llewelyn’s beloved daughter. He searched the faces of the villagers as he travelled down the broad street of Talgar. None would meet his eye. There would have been those who knew who he was, where he had come from, whom he protected, yet not one of them would stand against their new lord to help him. He could not blame them. He had learned, through his taciturn yet bored jailor, what terrible hold de Chapelle had over them. When he had ousted the Welsh Prince from his land, by order of the NormanKing, he had stormed the village with his soldiers. Highly trained and well armed, they had made short work of the men of the village. All of fighting age had been slain. The women and old men were spared, but the children were taken. Rounded up like so many sheep, they had been locked in caged carts and borne away, taken to the city of Mercia. Every desperate mother and distraught grandparent had been told the same thing; serve your new master peaceably, work hard, give him no trouble, and your children will be safe. They will be raised as servants and soldiers in good households. This was the agreement they were forced into. Any dissent, any movement against the new Lord of Brycheiniog, or his men, would be punished. And it would be the children who would bear that punishment. A first offence would earn them a flogging. A second would see them sold into slavery.
They continued up through the high valley pass that would take them back to the village of Cwmdu. It was slow work, the track roughened by winter and not suitable for a cart. The men were forced to stop often, dismount, and help heft the cart out of a rut or a hole. The mud clung to the wheels and sucked at the horses’ hooves. The journey, though short, tested the patience of those fighting men who felt their time and skills could be better used. They knew it was Brynach whoneeded the wagon, for he was too weak to sit on a horse, and the way they looked at him made it clear they despised him for it. At last they descended a short incline, rounded the bottom of a low hill, and came into the abandoned village. Brynach had thought his heart hardened to a knot of oak, but the sight of his old home empty and silent, the houses twisted with ivy, pastures untended, roofs staved in and fences broken, caused a sharp stab of pain in his chest. The elegant house that had once been the home of a noble family was greatly reduced, its roof mostly holes and rotten rafters, its walls tangled with ivy, and willow saplings growing through the glassless windows. The wagon came to a halt at the centre of the village, just beside the old well. Brynach glanced at de Chapelle. The younger man sat atop his horse, staring at the well as if he half expected Rhiannon to spring out of it. His adjutant, evidently knowing his master’s wishes, set about making camp in the small clearing. A tent would provide more comfort than the ruined house at the top of the village. When one of the soldier’s thought to draw water from the well he was bellowed at and all were told that no-one was to touch it. Although spring had arrived, the nights promised to continue cold, so wood was gathered for fires. Brynach had to bite back oaths when he saw the men wrench doors from their hinges toserve as firewood. Two soldiers untied him and roughly dragged him from the cart. They took him to a post near one of the fires and secured him there. Others prepared food over the fire. For two hours he was forced to sit and watch while the Baron and his men relaxed in the camp, sitting by the fire, eating venison and bread, drinking strong wine. It was properly dark when at last de Chapelle’s attention turned to his prisoner once more.
He had Brynach untied and brought to stand before him. Yet again, it was Stew-faced who stepped forwards to seize the opportunity to be involved in his trials.
‘So, here is our loyal Welsh soldier, returned to his princely home,’ he mocked, taking in the ruined village with a sweep of his arm. The firelight reflected off his silver nose piece making it impossible to ignore, however hard Brynach tried. He was all too well aware of how his tormentor watched himself being watched. How he looked for any sign of ridicule or repulsion. The Baron shifted on his seat of sheepskins. ‘I have been considering,’ he went on, ‘what might be the swiftest way to gain from you that information you so stubbornly refuse to give me. I have asked my men, and they have very…. entertaining ideas as to what we might try.’ He paused to let this thought do its work on his prisoner’s mind. He sighed then. ‘But I weary of such things. Far better you simply tell me what I wish to know, and avoid all the time and unpleasantness,’ here he waved his hand as if the torture might trouble him more than Brynach, ‘that brutal means must take. What say you, soldier? Will you speak?’
Brynach did not rush to reply. He had thought out his plan, and everything depended upon him presenting his case convincingly. However much it cost him. When he tried to speak, he was so unaccustomed to using his voice that it was little more than a hoarse whisper.
‘Louder man!’ snapped de Chapelle. ‘Do not use up what little patience I have left for this matter.’
‘Forgive me, my Lord,’ he said, the words curdling in his mouth. ‘I was Lord Llewelyn’s liege man for more than a decade. My life’s work was to serve him. Upon my life, all that I wish for is to serve him still and do right by his blood. But…’ he hesitated.
‘But? Yes, go on…’
He lowered his head, humble, staring at his feet. ‘I am… not the soldier I once was. I cannot pretend otherwise. And… among the villagers are my kin, a sister and a niece. Those who live on the mountain, they are not soldiers, but they would fight to protect… their Lord’s daughter. And they would die doing so.’ He looked up then, meeting his captor’s eye. ‘I would save them from that if I could. I would have you strike a bargain.’
‘Ha! It seems to me you are in no position to bargain with me,Cymru.’
‘I know it is Lady Gwen you seek,’ he said, using her old name, not wanting to raise the other man’s suspicions that she was in some way elevated, or that she might be in charge of the community.
‘Her actions cannot go unpunished. She must answer for them. It may be that having the whole village pay a price will teach her better and send a warning to others.’
‘It may. And yet, there is not much honour to be found in the killing of old women and small children. Your men are fine soldiers, I can see that. Must they blunt their steel on such unworthy opponents?’ Brynach held his breath. Had he gone too far? De Chapelle was not a man who would suffer being told what to do. Might he take the opposite course merely out of pique or spite?
‘Tell me then, how you would plan to give her up?’
Brynach’s heart raced at this small glimmer of hope. It seemed the Baron would at least consider his offer.
‘Let me return to the village. I will tell the elders there that they must send the girl down the mountain to you,or your men will sweep through their hideout without mercy.’
‘You have just said they would die for her. Why now do you expect me to believe they would give her up?’
‘They have spent two long winters shivering on the hillside. Many are frail in their health, and the children are growing with no hope of a future. I believe they will listen to me. I believe I can make them see that they must let her go for the greater good.’
De Chapelle picked up a stick and poked at the fire, sending a shower of sparks leaping and spitting into the night sky.
‘And how am I to trust you? Why would you not simply scuttle back to your hiding place and stay there?’
At last Stew-face could hold his silence no longer.
