Rhiannon (40 page)

This was as close as Llewelyn dared come to saying to Kicva
that he wanted Rhiannon to marry Simon. To give orders to Kicva could easily
produce a result opposite from what he desired, so he gave none. In this case, however,
Llewelyn and Kicva were in total agreement. Rhiannon needed to be married. Her
nature was not at all like that of her mother. Kicva regretted this but
accepted it. She thought it very unfortunate that Rhiannon could not find a man
to suit her when she was younger, before she had built so comfortable a pattern
of life. It would have been much better if Rhiannon had married seven or eight
years past, but no man attracted her; worse, there had been no man who would
permit her to remain Rhiannon, until Simon.

Rhiannon again poured out the tale, ending with the
passionate avowal that it was lunacy for a woman to love any man.

“So I have always thought,” Kicva agreed with a faint smile,
“but it seems you are too late to worry about that. It is quite clear that you
already love Simon.”

“I
will
cure myself,” Rhiannon cried angrily.

Kicva stared at her and then laid down her spindle. “You
know it is not my practice to tell people about themselves. It does no good.
But I will say this because I am disappointed in you, Rhiannon. You are acting
like a fool.”

Rhiannon dropped her eyes. “You also think I am being cruel
to Simon, and it is better for me to suffer than for him to suffer?”

“Have you lost your sense and reason completely?” Kicva
asked. “How could I prefer Simon’s well-being to yours? You are my daughter,
flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. For you I groaned with the pain of bearing
and sighed with the pleasure of suckling. I will not say I am indifferent to
Simon. I like him as well as I have ever liked any man, but he is nothing to me
compared with you.”

“Then why are you disappointed in me?” Rhiannon raised her
eyes.

Her mother made a brief, impatient sound. “You have passed
twenty-two summers, Rhiannon, and since you were six or seven it has taken no more
than one or two questions for you to examine your own heart and find the truth.
From the time you met Simon, you have gone back to being a kicking, screaming
infant. Why do you lie to yourself, Daughter?”

This, of course, was why Rhiannon had not brought her
troubles to her mother in the first place. There was never any sympathy to be
had from Kicva, except for injuries like a scraped knee or a bee sting. To
complain of misery only brought questions, which delineated the cause so
clearly that an obvious solution always appeared. Unfortunately, the solution
was seldom easy or flattering.

“This is not your first attempt to cure yourself,” Kicva
continued. “When you first met Simon, you sent him away. Did it help? You were
even ready to believe yourself a heifer lowing in her heat for any bull. Did
that help? Do you really believe there is a cure for your love?”

“There must be! What if Simon were dead or did not want me?”

“If he had never wanted you, I doubt you would have loved
him. To love, one must know a man. To see a handsome face from afar and be
stirred by self-induced longings is not love. The fact that he did seek you
ends that, even if he should change his mind owing to your stupidity—men grow
tired of women who cut off their noses to spite their faces—yes, I know that is
Simon’s phrase, but it is very apt. If he were dead… Silly child, do you think
I love Gwydyon less because he is dead?”

“But you suffered when he died, suffered greatly.”

“That is quite true, Rhiannon. And I suffer still—if that means
that I miss his physical presence. It is more than ten years and I am not
cured. To speak the truth, I do not wish to be cured. My love for Gwydyon gives
me great pleasure. If a little pain is mingled in—well, that is life. Do you
really wish to spend ten or twenty years trying to cure yourself of a great
pleasure?”

“It will not take so long. It is different for me; I
do
wish to be cured.”

For the first time, Kicva looked really worried and leaned
forward to see Rhiannon’s face better. “What has made you hate yourself,
Rhiannon? Daughter, why are you punishing yourself?”

“Hate myself?” Rhiannon’s voice scaled upward. “I am not
trying to punish myself. I am trying to save myself from pain.”

“How? By inflicting unending torment upon yourself? It is
true that anyone who loves also fears and that fear is painful. But there are
compensations. The fear is brief and not frequent, while the pleasure endures
always. It even mingles with the pain and—”

“Makes it sharper and crueler,” Rhiannon spat angrily.

“More poignant—yes—but sweeter, too, for it is shared.”

“I do not wish to share,” Rhiannon cried, springing to her
feet. She was so overwrought that she did not even notice the mortar falling to
the floor and spilling its contents far and wide. “Why should my life be tied
by so many threads? Why should my heart check when Lord Ian’s breath rattles in
his breast? Why should I ache when Lady Gilliane fears for her husband? Why
should I worry about whether Sybelle has chosen the right man? I need to be
free!”

“Now I know why you hate yourself, my daughter,” Kicva said.

She then lifted her spindle and began to spin again. Panting
with shock and rage at what her mother had said, Rhiannon kicked the mortar out
of her way and ran from the room. Only then did Kicva permit herself to smile.
The problem was all but solved. Soon Rhiannon would understand what she herself
had said. Another day or two of bitter struggle and she would accept the
burden. Kicva’s eyes grew sad and distant. It had never been in her, the
ability to feel what others felt. She knew and understood what they felt, often
more clearly than they did themselves, but she did not feel it. It was her art
to hear the cause underneath the word, but neither cause nor word touched
her—not even for her own daughter.

Then she shrugged. Each person was as God devised. Briskly,
she put aside her work and took her writing desk out of the chest where it was
stored. She sharpened a quill, unstoppered a horn of ink, and wrote:
To
Prince Llewelyn from Kicva, greetings. I hope you are well as I am. So, too,
now is Rhiannon, or she soon will be. If it is possible that she and Simon be
brought together quickly, that would be best, as it is not impossible that he
will be driven to do something foolish by her silliness. Even if he does not,
the more time she has to consider what she has done will make her ill at ease
and increase the awkwardness of the reconciliation. Thus, if a reason can be
found to send her where Simon is, find it. Written this last day of October at
Angharad’s Hall.

Later, when one of the hunters came in, Kicva gave him the
letter and told him to take it to Prince Llewelyn at Builth as fast as he could
go.

Rhiannon fled from the hall out across the courtyard. The
night air was cold and bit her fire-warmed flesh. Instinctively she turned
toward the stable where the big bodies of the horses warmed the air. But horses
were too restless for her mood. There were six half-grown lambs penned in a
corner. Rhiannon did not know the reason they were penned there rather than out
on the pasture, but she ran in among them, grateful for the warmth of their
fleece and the placidity of their natures. They would not react, as the horses
would, to her inner turmoil.

Hate herself! Was her mother mad? Rhiannon clung to her fury
and to her sense of hurt as tightly as she could. To let go of the rage would
open the way to an everlasting prison. All her life she had been free to work
or to play, to dress as she liked, to say what she wanted to whomever she
wished to speak. Was she to yield this freedom? Was she always to need to think
whether what she said, did, dressed would affect others? How dare Kicva say she
knew why Rhiannon hated herself? Was that freedom not the life Kicva had chosen
for herself?

But had she chosen it? Did Kicva have any more freedom of
choice than Rhiannon herself had? The question sent chills up and down Rhiannon
as she understood it. She would never know whether Kicva’s choice had been made
freely—the Christian faith said there was free will for man—but she realized
finally that she herself had no choice. Whether or not she hid herself from
Simon, she
cared
what happened to him—and not only to him, but to all of
them. She was already caught in the spider web of love relationships, and there
was no way to break free. She could die struggling, hating herself for trying
to avoid all bonds of love, or she could accept her silken prison together with
its comforts and its joys and the occasional pains of its manacles.

The lambs stirred gently, baaed sleepily; their fleeces
smelled oily-sweet. The last time Rhiannon had pillowed her head on unwashed
fleeces with so strong an odor was in the shepherd’s hut where she and Simon
had taken refuge to make love on a rainy day. Desire washed over Rhiannon, and
a storm of violent tears swept her into exhausted sleep when she had cried
herself out.

Math was snuggled to her side when she woke. She met his
large, passionless eyes, so like her own in appearance but much closer to her
mother’s in expression. Math did not need her, she knew. He hunted for himself
and found warmth enough. Yet he went with her to places he did not like in a
conveyance he loathed because he loved her. With that, he was also
free—sometimes. Her lips twitched.

“So you have forgiven me, Math, have you? Well, I am glad. I
have forgiven myself also. Now, since you are so wise, how will I explain this
to Simon and manage to keep a rag of my pride? I cannot, after all, simply
appear curled up in his bed. He will ask why, and I cannot just stare coldly at
him as you do at me.”

Kicva’s messenger was in Builth on November third, but
Llewelyn had not yet arrived. He came on the fourth, only there was such a
press of business that he could not worry about the peculiarities of his
daughter. On the fifth, the Earl of Pembroke arrived, and Llewelyn was still
busier so that he completely forgot Kicva’s letter. That evening, when he
called Simon over for a few words, he noticed that the young man was looking
rather fine-drawn. That reminded him, but he said nothing to Simon in case
Kicva’s news was bad.

When he was free, he read the letter and cursed luridly. If
he had read it when he first saw it, he could have sent for Rhiannon to
entertain the earl while Pembroke was a guest at Builth. In truth, he doubted
that Pembroke would care for or understand Rhiannon’s singing. The earl was not
given to the arts, except those of war, and what he knew of singing were
delicate ditties in the French mode. However, it would have been an excellent
excuse.

Llewelyn tapped his teeth with a finger. Why should he feel
it was too late? It was still an excellent excuse. It was perfectly logical
that, having now met Pembroke personally and liking him for himself, Llewelyn
would offer to him the greatest delicacy he had—his daughter Rhiannon’s
singing. Yes, and it could do no harm if Pembroke thought he was not perceptive
enough to realize that Welsh folk tales would not be the most appropriate
entertainment to offer a French-oriented Marcher lord. The choice would
underline Llewelyn’s intense pride in his heritage as well as imply that he did
not understand his guest very well. Good!

The letter to Kicva was written before Llewelyn sought his
bed, and the messenger was sent out with instructions that it be delivered with
more than usual haste. Then Llewelyn dismissed both Simon and Rhiannon from his
mind. He had more serious matters to consider than a love affair, particularly
since he now had good reason to assume it would come to the conclusion he
desired.

Reports came in every day. Henry and his army were still at
Gloucester. As long as they remained there, Pembroke could afford to stay at
Builth, discussing what moves he was willing to make and what he could provide
for offense and defense. Llewelyn could put forward his proposals and detail
what he would do to support them. The Welsh prince was inwardly irritated by
Pembroke’s excessive sense of honor; he called it not knowing on which side of
the bread the butter was spread. However, it had its advantages, too. Once
bound, Richard would stay that way; so Llewelyn concealed his impatience with
this exaggerated nicety and spoke of many plans as contingent when he was
certain from long experience that they would have to be used.

On the ninth of November, news came that Henry and his army
had begun moving north. Pembroke sent out word that his men should assemble at
Abergavenny, which would put him sixteen miles from Monmouth—a royal
stronghold—and twenty-four miles from Hereford—another keep and town loyal to
Henry—or, at least, not openly rebels. Both passages were easy, a day’s travel
or less for Pembroke’s troops so that they could counter any move westward the
king might make.

Llewelyn assured Pembroke there was no need for him to leave
to join his army yet. Welsh scouts would bring in news of Henry’s movements
every few hours. Although he would not
admit
that he did not trust the
wily Welsh leader, Richard could not eliminate all his doubts. He found a
solution to his dilemma by asking that Simon be in charge of the scouting parties.
Despite the fact that Simon was Llewelyn’s vassal, Richard was certain his dead
brother’s squire would do nothing to harm him.

It did not take much perception for Llewelyn to understand
the request. He was mildly irritated again because he had wanted Simon to be at
Builth when Rhiannon came. However, that was certainly not important enough to
increase or confirm Pembroke’s suspicions. Rhiannon would simply have to wait.
She would be perfectly safe at Builth until this action was over. Llewelyn not
only sent Simon out but asked Pembroke to give him his instructions, since only
Pembroke knew how much warning he would need to join his men and get them in
action.

Simon was delighted to go. He still knew nothing about
Kicva’s letter or Llewelyn’s answer to it. In Llewelyn’s opinion, to expect a
reconciliation with one’s love from moment to moment was no way to make that
reconciliation proceed smoothly. Rhiannon would come; Kicva was never wrong,
but whether she would come flashing down from the mountain like a bird or ride
slowly over the roads with an escort and baggage, Llewelyn could not guess. He
wanted Simon’s mind on what he was doing, which was mixing with Pembroke’s men
so that Llewelyn could know what Richard’s supporters thought and how close
their ties were to Pembroke.

There had been nothing new to learn on that score, however.
Simon had told Llewelyn all he could days before, and he was bored with trying
to keep the peace between the northern and southern Welsh and the
English-Norman contingents. He had not been sleeping well, and although he had
twice wandered through the section where the camp followers plied their trade,
he had come away without relieving his needs. And his feelings about Rhiannon
still seesawed from hope to despair and back again. Llewelyn’s order and
Pembroke’s instructions were the answers to his prayers. Simon had gathered his
men and was away before anyone could change his mind.

Kicva’s hunter returned to Angharad’s Hall with Llewelyn’s
letter just after the ladies had broken their fast, about two hours before
Simon set off to watch the movements of the king’s army. He apologized for
being slow. The fine weather had broken with a heavy fall of rain, which had
overfilled several small rivers, making the usual fords useless. Kicva smiled.
She knew about the fall of rain. It had imprisoned Rhiannon in the house, so
that instead of examining her fears in the soft melancholy of the autumn forest
and healing herself in silence, Rhiannon had worked them out on her harp. She
had produced her first original song, not a translation or a distillation of an
old story or her grandfather’s work, but her own tale and melody—and it was
good, the equal, Kicva thought, to Gwydyon’s work.

When she had played it through complete, Rhiannon had looked
at her mother in dazed amazement. “That is my pain,” she whispered, “and it is
beautiful.”

“Yes, Daughter. Did you think the songs Gwydyon wove came
from a dead, untouched heart? They, too, were leached out of blood and agony.
It changes, too, you know. Not now, perhaps not even soon, but it will breed
more songs.”

Less rebellious than she had been for nearly a year,
Rhiannon accepted that. She did not strain to make more music and only used her
harp for her customary practice. She was not ill-humored, but she was restless.
It was not only that she wished to go to Simon so that she could think of him
as happy rather than hurt and wondering, nor that she wanted to know what he
was doing so that her anxiety would pinch and prick her less. Those just added to
her general sense that she must be up and doing something—anything.

Needless to say, Llewelyn’s command was greeted with cries
of enthusiasm. Rhiannon did cast one single suspicious glance at her mother as
she went to pack, but then she told herself severely that she did not care
whether Kicva and Llewelyn had planned this to manage her. She wanted to go.
She would
not
cut off her nose to spite her face. Her laughter trilled
like bird song when she thought of “Simon’s words”, and Math came and rubbed
against her legs. Then to her blank amazement he went and sat beside the padded
basket in which he traveled.

Rhiannon paused in her packing, sat back on her heels, and
stared at him. “I do not think you should go,” she said. “We will be in a keep,
and you hate that. Also, we may have to move several times.”

There were occasions when Rhiannon almost expected to get an
answer from Math. She never did—except in the way things worked out. All he did
was stare back at her with his clear, pale eyes, the pupils down to slits.
Rhiannon thought briefly of trying to imprison him when they left. Unlike dogs,
cats hunted by eye and could not follow a trail. Then she shrugged. If Math
wanted to go, why should he not? She would be glad to have him when the men
moved on while she had to wait to know where they would stop before she could
follow.

A faint chill washed over her as she focused on her own
thought. For the first time she understood what she intended to do. Not that
she
was shocked by the idea that she intended to follow Simon wherever he went, but
Simon might be. Then another thrill passed up and down her spine. How had Math
known she did not intend to return to Angharad’s Hall until Simon came with
her? Rhiannon shook the thought away. If Math was more than a large, beautiful
cat, he meant well for her and for Simon. It was as unwise to look too closely
into the kindly doings of the old gods as it was to look at the teeth of a
gift-horse.

An hour after the messenger arrived, Rhiannon was mounted
and ready to leave. Four men—strong, devoted, clever, and fierce—rode with her,
and in spite of the horses they did not take the roads. Still, even as a bird
flies, it was more than seventy miles from Angharad’s Hall to Builth, and birds
do not have to backtrack to avoid chasms or to ford rivers or to pick their way
along goat trails over precipitous mountains, Rhiannon might have ridden
through the night if the ground was reasonable, but even she was not so eager
as to try to ford an overfull river that sounded angry in the dark.

Simon settled down to catch some sleep at just about the
same time Rhiannon did. He had had a pleasant and satisfactory day. He had
established most of his troop and all the horses on Orcop Hill while small
detachments, including himself, scouted west and south on foot. Pembroke had
told the truth when he said there was nothing left for the king’s army around
Clifford and southeast of Hereford. You could tell which lands were beholden to
which side. Pembroke’s were stripped bare, but neatly and cleanly. Hereford’s
were blackened, and one could smell the dead serfs as one passed.

There had been no sign of the king’s army yet, except one
patrol, and they had seemed more interested in forage than in the terrain. That
was an interesting piece of information; it might mean that Gloucester had not
been very generous with provender. The men beholden to Gloucester could not be
open rebels; their youthful overlord was now with his stepfather, Richard of
Cornwall, and his mother—who was Pembroke’s sister. They could, however, do
their best not to help, by concealing their stock, by pleading the effect of a
murrain or a bad harvest. They could also say that Henry had already levied on
them in August, and they had no more to give.

If that was true, the king’s army was already short of
supplies. Henry could not, then, strike due west because he already knew that
Usk and the surrounding area were naked as a newborn babe. But the scouts would
tell him that there was nothing around Hereford either. It could mean that Henry
would do nothing until supplies could be gathered from England. That did not
please Simon, and he turned restlessly and then rerolled himself in his blanket
and cloak. As warmth seeped into him, he smiled. Henry was in a terrible rage,
and patience had never been one of his virtues, even when he was not angry.

On that pleasant thought Simon slept. He woke easily at a
touch some hours later. The troop ate pressed cakes of flaked, dried meat,
dried fruit, and meal, passed around a small wineskin that one of the men had
been carrying, and set out again. They found the army before dawn. Henry’s
force was camped amid the burned-out farms midway between Gloucester and
Hereford. As the sun came up, the army began to stir. Simon and his men
squatted in the cover of a grove of trees and watched, finishing their sleep by
turns.

The sights and sounds were familiar, men waking each other,
crying out for one reason or another, cooking pots clanging, grooms shouting
and cursing at their charges as they fed them or prepared to lead them to
water. After a while, the camp quieted somewhat while the men ate. Then the
bedlam began again and even increased. Simon breathed a sigh of relief. The
army was going to move. He watched a little longer, until he saw some
handsomely caparisoned horses being led toward the largest tent on the field.
Then he gestured Echtor closer.

“I will take four men and follow the royal party. You follow
the army with the rest of the men—three for the head, three for the rear guard.
When they settle for the night, we will meet at Orcop Hill. If they should not
stop but strike west toward Wales, send two men to Builth—or to the nearest of
Prince Llewelyn’s men they can find—with as much information as you can glean
about their intentions.”

The next few hours were quite exhausting. There was no
keeping up with the horses, of course, but Simon and his men found where Henry
and his companions had turned off the road and were then able to follow their
trail, which led due west to the Wye. They had ridden along the river,
apparently having the escort test places that looked fordable. The heavy rains
of the preceding week had filled the river, however. A man might swim it, as
could horses, but for the baggage wains there was no passage except the one
near Hereford.

Simon rejoiced at the persistence in looking for a crossing.
Apparently Henry intended to move his army west, which could only mean he
planned an attack. Owing to the care with which the river had been examined,
Simon had caught up with the party just before they reached Hereford. He saw
Henry and the leaders enter the town while the escort turned back. Simon did
not bother to wait for the royal party to emerge or to follow the escort. He
returned to the camp on Orcop Hill and sent out Siorl and six of the men, who
had lounged away the two days watching an empty pass, to watch instead the
roads leading north and west from Hereford.