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 Criccieth 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 Criccieth. “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 a'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.
* * * * *
All I wanted to do was sleep. I woke the first time to find Llywelyn sitting silently beside my bed, but another time it was someone else—a woman I didn’t know—and twice Anna came to me, rubbed her nose gently against mine, and curled up in my arms. When that happened I wrapped my arms around her and slept deeply, waking again only when the sun lit the room and a young woman came to take her away.
I dozed in and out all the next day, feeling a fever rise and fall within me. People spoke whispers in the doorway that were too low for me to hear and I could sense their unhappiness. A woman put a poultice on my forehead and someone lifted me to tip water into my mouth. Alternating hot and cold, I lost track of time. Another day passed, and then another.
I opened my eyes, finally, with only the usual low candle providing a light for the room. The blankets had come off my shoulder and I tugged on them but they didn’t release. I turned and found Llywelyn stretched out on his back, fully dressed, on top of the covers. And on top of him, her head on his chest, with a loose blanket thrown over both of them, was Anna, sound asleep. My breath hitched and emotion tickled the base of my breastbone.
I studied them, sprawled and intertwined, Anna with her arms wide about him, one hand tucked underneath Llywelyn’s left arm, the other hidden under the hair on his right shoulder. He’d braced his elbows on the bed and placed his hands on either side of her to keep her secure. I lay back down, now facing them, and slipped my right hand under his right shoulder, just to touch him as he slept.
As I did so, I realized I hadn’t ever touched him before, not on purpose—not since I tried to take the knife from him. He slept on; I closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure if anyone in this world would know what love was—not on my twentieth century terms. The tales of romantic love and chivalry were starting to come out of France about now, but that wasn’t love either, as far as I was concerned. Did I care that he didn’t love me? Yes and no. But it wasn’t hard to see that he loved my daughter. Trev hadn’t loved her and he’d never held her this way.
Llywelyn had an inner core that was so solid, he gave the impression that he didn’t need anyone, emotionally least of all. He did need people to do his bidding, and they all did—out of loyalty, or perhaps self-preservation, or even love. He was an easy man to love, in fact, because he was so obviously there. He believed in Truth, Justice and the Welsh Way—in all capital letters. He was slow to anger, unlike Trev, whose temper always simmered just below the surface, waiting to lash out.
What he might not be was an easy man to live with—not for me, and maybe not for anyone. It wasn’t that he wasn’t honest, because he was. He told everyone straight out what he wanted from them and what he expected of them, and then he expected everyone to do exactly that. He was so sure of his own rightness that it didn’t leave a lot of room—or any room, for that matter—for anyone else’s insecurities. He held himself so tightly, I wasn’t sure that he had any emotions at all. And yet, he held Anna now, and I’d seen his eyes when he’d lost Geraint at the Gap, when he’d picked me out of the surf, and when we were quiet together. There was more inside than he let on.
Many hours later, I awoke and wondered if I’d dreamed Llywelyn’s presence. From the light coming through the window, it was getting on towards evening. I was alone in the room again. Perhaps they knew, as I suddenly did, that I was well.
I slipped out of bed, shivering as my feet touched the cold floor, and dipped my hand into the water in the basin beside my bed. It was lukewarm, which meant that the maid had brought it recently. She’d also stoked the fire. I looked for a robe to wear over my nightgown and found a blue one hanging over the back of a chair. I put it on. It was Llywelyn’s. It made a grand train behind me as I walked and the sleeves hung nearly to the floor. I belted it at the waist and my stomach growled. How many days had I been ill? I didn’t even know.
Hoping for some sustenance, I poked my nose out the door and looked into the hallway. It was empty. All I wanted was to sneak into the kitchen for food without anyone making a fuss over me. Or sending me back to bed. I tiptoed into the hall, and then continued towards the stairs at the far end. Halfway along the hall, I flitted past an open door. Just as I crossed the opening, I realized whose room it was, and that I probably wasn’t going to get away without being recognized.
“Meg.”
Llywelyn growled at me from inside the room. Resigned to capture, I peered around the frame of the door into Llywelyn’s office.
“Hi,” I said.
He stood next to a table near the door, polishing his sword. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting up,” I said. “I don’t need to sleep anymore.”
“Hmm.” He carefully scraped oil down the length of the blade and back up the other side. He glanced at me and then back to his sword. “This was my grandfather’s weapon. My squire polishes my armor but I allow no one else to touch the sword.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. I entered the room and reached out to touch the crosspiece with one finger. Silver and gold threads had been worked into the steel, though no gems adorned it. Perhaps they were used only in ornamental swords.
Llywelyn set the sword in its rest, carefully laying it crosswise in a padded cradle. He wiped his hands on a cloth and then reached for me. I allowed him to pull me in front of him, hands at my sides, a little stiff. He rubbed my arms up and down, studying me all the while with an enigmatic smile on his face. Then he nodded, as if he’d just completed a conversation with himself, and kicked the door to the room closed.
“Now that you are well,” he said, as the door clicked into place, “I wanted to talk to you.”
“What about?”
He hesitated, and then smiled again. “‘What about?’ she asks, as if she doesn’t know.”
“Llywelyn,” I said, as confused by him talking to me—or maybe it was to himself—in the third person, as I’d been by his smile.
He was standing so close to me that I would have stepped away had the table with his sword on it not been right at my back. I was almost afraid to look at him and he appeared to sense it because he put his finger under my chin and tipped my face up so he could see my eyes.
Oh. About that.
“I’m not prepared to lose you,” he said.
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I . . . I’d rather not be lost.”
Llywelyn didn’t seem to notice how terribly lame that sounded. “You were very brave. When you dove out of the boat and started swimming to shore, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
“Things have happened to me here that I never could have imagined in a million years,” I said. “Where I grew up, I would never have fallen into a river—I would never even have been on a horse. Did you know we don’t even use horses anymore in my world?”
Llywelyn’s fingers found mine and he laced his through them. “Do you think about your world all the time?”
“Yes,” I said. “Sometimes it feels like this is a dream that I’ll wake up from at any moment. There were times over the last few days when I was sure I would find myself in my own bed in Radnor when I opened my eyes.”
“I’m not a dream,” Llywelyn said.
“I noticed that,” I said. “Truly.” He was so close to me know I was having trouble speaking and my breath caught in my throat.
“Would you return if you could? You and Anna?”
I opened my mouth to answer, and then lowered my eyes, not wanting to hurt his feelings. You have no idea, Llywelyn. You have no idea what it’s like. “So many terrible things have happened since I came here. I wasn’t prepared for any of it.”
He gave a half-laugh. “I take that as a yes, then,” he said.
“Is the question so important Llywelyn? I’ve no way back. Whatever door I opened when I came here has closed. This is real and Radnor is just a dream.”
“So you’ll make the best of a bad job, is that it?” Llywelyn laughed again, without humor, and then sobered. “Does that include me?” His voice had gone soft. “Can I make up for some of what you’ve lost?”
“Oh,” I said, and forced myself to look into his face. “I think so, yes.”
“You do have a choice,” he said.
“Are you giving me one?”
“Yes,” Llywelyn said. “I am. I won’t keep you like a selkie who only stays with her man because he’s stolen her true self and hidden it in a chest. I won’t keep you here if the door to your world opens and you want to walk through it. I thought about this as I sat by your side these last few days, with you fevered, afraid I would lose you before I really made you mine. I decided that I’m quite selfish enough to bind you to me, but not against your will.”
I was trying to keep up, to figure out where this was going. “Bind me to you?”
“I’m forty years old, Meg,” he said. “I’ve never married. Do you know why?”
“Angharad said something to me about it,” I said. “But I’d rather hear it from you.”
“I’ve not dared marry anyone. There is danger in tying myself to one woman if she cannot give me an heir,” he said. “I’ve loved women in the past, but never committed to taking that last step with them.”
“But you can’t with me either,” I said.
Llywelyn studied me. “Perhaps I can.”
“Llywelyn,” I said. “I’m a nobody, a commoner.”
“Who says?”
“Everybody!”
“Is that so?” Llywelyn said, back to the half-smile. “You’ve heard people speak of it?
“Well, no. Actually, I haven’t. I just assumed it to be the case.”
“I have chosen you,” Llywelyn said. “And that should be enough for everyone, including you. It is certainly enough for me.”
“So . . .” I felt more and more at sea. “What are you saying?”
“I believe God has put you in my path and swept you along with me for a reason. I will not turn my back on what He has given me.” His voice had lowered and I began to believe what he was saying. “At the same time, I must warn you that I can’t marry you in the eyes of the Church. The Pope must approve any royal marriage, to prevent relationships with close kin. I can’t produce any bloodlines for you that would satisfy the Pope unless you can tell me different.”
“No.” The hysterical laughter that came at the most inopportune times rose in my chest. “Not exactly. And especially not if I claim kinship with Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd.”
“The Pope has threatened me with excommunication in the past, and I well remember the long years of the interdict placed on my grandfather. The candles were extinguished in all the churches in Wales because of his actions. My grandfather refused to bow to King John of England, as I have at times to King Henry. As you tell me I will to Edward when he takes the throne. If I must, I will risk my own soul, but I prefer not to risk the souls of my people unless the need is very great.”
Llywelyn’s face held such earnestness, I couldn’t look away. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this. I don’t understand what you’re asking of me.”
“I’m asking you to marry me,” he said. “Right here, right now. As God is our witness.”
“Llywelyn.” I couldn’t speak above a whisper. “I don’t know what to say. You can’t mean it.”
“I do mean it, Meg.”
The laughter caught in my throat. “What if I’m the same as all those other women? What if I can’t give you a son?”
Llywelyn laughed too—and this time it was genuine. “You could never be the same as any other woman! I can’t imagine such a thing.” Then he sobered, watching me, and waiting.
“And Anna?”
“I love Anna as my own daughter.”
Silence. I couldn’t think.
“Say yes,” he said. “Say you love me. You do, don’t you?” A sliver of worry appeared in his eyes at that last question, perhaps not as sure of himself as he wanted to be.
“I’m not sure that’s entirely the point.”
“So you do,” he said, self-satisfied. “I want to hear you say it. Say you love me.”
The abyss opened before my feet and this time it was one of my own making. “I love you, Llywelyn.”
Llywelyn grinned. He moved his hands to my waist and pulled me closer. “You’ve been married before. What are the vows you say in your time?”
“Llywelyn,” I said, trying to be rational through the fog in my brain. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m trying,” he said, tucking me under his chin, “to do the right thing. I’m trying to give you my heart.”
“Oh.” I stepped forward over the edge and accepted that I was falling and that I would find no bottom.
“I, Marged ferch Evan, take thee, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, to be my husband; to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part."
Llywelyn bent to touch his forehead to mine. “I don’t like that last bit,” he said. “What is death to part us? It’s time I’m worried about.”
“We can leave it off, then.”
He nodded. “Among the common folk, when there is no priest to hand, we say:
For as long as there is wind in the mountains; for as long as there’s salt in the sea; for as long as rain falls on these green hills; I will stand with thee. Marged ferch Evan, I claim thee as my wife.”
He brought his hands forward and clasped mine to his chest, one of my hands in each of his, and we stood there, pressed close and breathing each other in, for a long time.