When Christ and His Saints Slept

40

The Welsh Marches

March 1148

Ranulf had been to Blancminster once before, with Robert, and he remembered that it was sixteen miles northwest of Shrewsbury. That would make it, by his reckoning, fourteen or fifteen miles due west. Even if he kept his mount to a slow canter and stopped often, he should still be able to reach Fitz Alan’s stronghold before dark.

He soon realized, though, that this would be the longest fifteen-mile ride of his life. He had to halt and rest frequently, and each time it became more difficult to get back into the saddle. By noon, he was already wondering why he’d been such a fool, and if he’d had it to do over again, he’d have elected to ride into Shrewsbury with Aaron and Josce, and let Annora and his overblown pride and Stephen’s sheriff be damned. But that was a regret four hours and five miles too late. All he could do now was to make the best of a bad bargain.

With that in mind, he resolved to seek the first shelter he could find, no matter how shabby or meagre. But the narrow road was deserted, the land uninhabited. He passed no hamlets, not even an occasional secluded cottage. Villages did not thrive in the shadow of the border, for this was bloody, disputed ground, English today, Welsh yesterday, who knows on the morrow. Ranulf felt as if he were riding through a ghost country, watched by unseen eyes, and his unease increased apace with his exhaustion. He plodded on, telling himself that he must be almost there, that the castle was likely to come into view at any time, just around the next bend in the road. But what he encountered was a river, swollen with the spring thaw.

He drew rein, staring in dismay at the expanse of muddy brown water. The River Dee snaked its way south from Chester, twisting and doubling back on itself like a fugitive seeking to throw off pursuit. Could this be the Dee? If so, he was miles to the north of where he’d hoped to be. How could he have gone so far astray?

Oddly enough, his very fatigue enabled him to slough off his despair; he was just too tired to be truly alarmed. He would, he decided, camp there by the river for the night. Come morning, he could decide whether to retrace his path back to the Chester Road or follow the river south toward Blancminster.

He’d been accustomed from boyhood to caring for horses, but never had such simple tasks exacted such a toll. By the time he’d unsaddled and watered his stallion and tethered it to graze, the sun was retreating west into Wales. Making a fire was an even more laborious effort, for first he had to gather and shred birch bark and dry moss to use as tinder, and then find a hard stone to strike sparks against his dagger. Once he finally got a fire going, he forced himself to eat some of the bread and salted fish he’d gotten from Aaron. It troubled him that he had so little appetite; he knew that was not a good sign.

It was not yet dark, but he laid out his blankets by the fire, wincing as he pulled his hauberk over his head. The interlocking metal links weighed more than twenty pounds and seemed to have gotten heavier as the day dragged on, but if he’d been wearing it on the Chester Road, it might have deflected that outlaw’s dagger. Rolling up his tunic, he slowly unwound the bandage Aaron had fashioned from a shirt, fearing what he would find. Red streaks radiated outward from the wound, like spokes on a wagon wheel, pus oozed around the edges of the plantain poultice, and the lightest touch of his fingers caused pain. Aaron had prophesied true when he’d argued the need for a doctor’s care. Well, God Willing, he’d find one on the morrow.

Ranulf awoke with a start. The sky was still dark, speckled with stars above his head. The air held a damp chill, but he’d flung the blankets off in his sleep, and when he touched his face now, his skin felt as if it were afire. Trying not to panic, he lay back upon the blanket. A fever was not always fatal. He was ill, there was no denying that. But he might be better by morning. If not, then he’d spend another day here, recovering his strength. There was no need to fear, not yet. He kept telling himself that until he finally fell asleep again.

He slept fitfully for the next few hours, but as the fire burned down, his temperature soared. Sweating and shivering by turns, he drifted in and out of a feverish sleep. His dreams were suffused with heat and hectic color, full of confusion and vague, unspecified menace. And when he was prodded awake in midmorning, he still seemed to be in that world of shadows and sinister foreboding, for two men were standing over him and one of them had a lance leveled at his throat.

Bandits! That was his first guess, followed almost immediately by-No, Welsh-for their faces were clean-shaven, mustached. There was no comfort in that realization, though, for the Welsh were just as likely to slay him-a Norman-French knight-as outlaws would. He swallowed dryly, taking care not to move, not flinching even as the spear dipped lower, hovering scant inches now from his chest. They were regarding him impassively. Did they understand French? And even if they did, what could he say to keep that spear from continuing its downward thrust?

“I am a king’s son,” he said hoarsely, “and worth more alive than dead.” Not even a flicker crossed those inscrutable faces. He repeated himself, in English this time. Again, no response, and that spear never wavered. Powys lay across the river, but the name of its ruler eluded him. The man had fought with them at the Battle of Lincoln; why could he not remember? Seizing upon the one name he did recall, Cadwaladr’s brother, the King of Gwynedd, he said hastily, “Owain Gwynedd!” At last he got a reaction; at least Owain’s name meant something. “I was seeking Lord Owain out,” he improvised, “with a message from the English king. Lord Owain will want to hear it.”

Did they understand? Impossible to tell. He lay very still, watching the spear as they conversed briefly in Welsh. He could taste sweat on his upper lip, hoped they knew it was from fever, not fear. Why it should matter what they thought of him, he could not have explained, but it did, if only because these enigmatic Welshmen might well be the last men he’d ever see.

They seemed to have reached a decision. The spear was shifting, being withdrawn. Ranulf’s sword had already been claimed while he slept. Reaching down, one of the men drew Ranulf’s dagger from its sheath, then produced a thin leather thong, which he used to lash Ranulf’s wrists together. And Ranulf expelled a shaken breath, knowing now that he had gained himself some time. How much time was still very much in doubt.

They followed the river upstream to a ford, splashed across into Wales, and then headed north. The road narrowed until it became little more than a deer track. They were in hill country now. The woods had not yet begun to show spring buds, and wherever Ranulf looked, he saw bare, wintry branches rising up, stabbing at the sky. Each time he swayed in the saddle, he grabbed the pommel, somehow managed to hold on. He was soon drenched in sweat, though. His ears were echoing with the labored, rasping sound of his own breathing. And by afternoon, a dark stain was spreading across his tunic.

When one of the Welshmen noticed the bleeding, he gestured toward the road ahead and then held up five fingers. Ranulf interpreted that to mean they had only five more miles to go. He clung to that hope as tightly as the saddle pommel. Five miles was not so very far. He could endure another five miles. In the past few months, life had lost its sweetness and he’d lost his way. But no longer. Death was once again the enemy, his indifference and apathy drowned in a Cheshire pond. And as his captors led him deeper into Wales, he clutched at that-his will to live-as his armor, his shield against whatever awaited him in this alien land.

The sun vanished with surprising swiftness, and the sky was soon the color of smoke. A hill loomed out of the twilight dusk, encircled by a timber palisade. As they rode toward it, it slowly took on a familiar shape, materializing into an English-style castle. But it was garrisoned by Welsh; mustached faces were peering over the palisade as the gate swung open to admit them.

Ranulf suddenly knew where he was-at Mold, the Welsh stronghold of Robert de Montalt, steward to the Earl of Chester. He remembered hearing of its fall, captured by Owain Gwynedd after a fierce three-month siege. Castles were not native to Wales, unknown until Marcher lords such as Montalt began to encroach across its borders, buttressing their claims with fortresses of timber and stone. So this must be Mold, Ranulf reasoned, Owain Gwynedd’s conquered castle. But as they rode across the deep ditch that separated the inner and outer baileys, Ranulf had another flash of memory. Mold had more than one name. According to William Fitz Alan, the Welsh called it Yr Wyddgrug-“the burial mound.”

Ranulf had to be assisted from the saddle. Once he was on his feet, his bonds were cut. Leaning heavily upon his guard’s arm, he was taken into the great hall. A number of men were standing by a huge open hearth, and he knew at once which one was Owain Gwynedd. He needed neither throne nor crown to proclaim his rank; the man himself was impressive enough to require no external trappings of authority. It helped that he was tall and tawny-haired, for his were a people more commonly dark and slightly built. But Ranulf knew his impact could not be explained away as easily as that. God had granted Stephen a handsome face and athletic body, too, but not a king’s “presence.” Whereas his own father-stout and bowlegged and balding-had been able to dominate any gathering, to awe and intimidate by the sheer force of his royal will.

When Ranulf was brought forward and forced to kneel before Owain Gwynedd, the Welshman regarded him thoughtfully. “There was no message from the English king, was there?” he said, in accented but understandable French. When Ranulf shook his head, he smiled slightly. “And are you truly a king’s son?”

“So they did understand me…”

“Enough to get you here. What happens next remains to be seen.” Owain had dark-grey eyes, a direct, incisive gaze. “Who are you? And more to the point, who’d want to ransom you?”

“I can afford to ransom myself.” Did his voice sound as odd to Owain as it did to him? Slurred and strangely muffled, as if coming from a great distance. “I am what I claimed to be-the son of an English king and a free woman of Wales.”

Owain smiled again, this time with ironic amusement. “Welsh blood? How convenient.”

“But true. My mother was Angharad ferch Rhys. She lived in your domains…the Conwy Valley…and my uncle dwells there still, Rhodri ap Rhys…”

Ranulf had just expended the last of his family lore, but what little he knew was apparently enough, for the Welsh king no longer looked so skeptical. “Rhodri ap Rhys is your uncle? A good man, I know him well.” He gestured then, giving Ranulf permission to rise. Ranulf made a game try, lurching to his feet, but then the ground seemed to fall away and the room began to tilt alarmingly. The next that he knew, he was on a bench, choking on a mouthful of mead. He sputtered, waved away the wineskin, and Owain leaned over him, holding up his hand, the palm smeared with red. “How were you hurt…and when?”

“Cheshire bandits, four days ago…I think.” Surely it was longer than that? He was being urged backward now, onto the bench, and he was quite willing to obey. Mayhap if he closed his eyes, the hall would stop spinning.

Owain stepped aside, beckoning to one of his men. “Fetch a doctor straightaway.” Glancing back at Ranulf’s chalky pallor, he added prudently, “And a priest.”

Ranulf knew he was very ill, but he was too weak to worry about it. He wanted only to sleep, yet people would not leave him alone. When they were not changing his bandage, they insisted upon piling wet compresses onto his forehead and chest, or spooning hot liquids into his mouth. He’d protest peevishly, yet they paid him no heed. They were patient and persistent and engulfed him in a sea of Welsh, not a word of which he understood. Sooner or later, though, they would go away, allowing him to slide gratefully back into oblivion.

Ranulf had lost all sense of time. He could not have said whether it was hours or days later when he opened his eyes, saw Owain Gwynedd standing by the bed. “I…I am not doing so well, am I?” he whispered, and the Welshman shook his head.

“The doctor says your wound has festered.”

“Am I going to die?”

“You are in God’s Hands, lad, as are we all.”

Ranulf pondered that evasive answer. “I think,” he said, “that I’d best see a priest…”

Owain nodded. “I’ve sent to Basingwerk Abbey for one who speaks French.” Ranulf seemed to be trying to speak again and he leaned closer so he could hear.

“If…if I die, will you let the Countess of Chester know?”

Owain nodded again. “I’ve sent word to your uncle Rhodri, too,” he said, and Ranulf lay back, too weak to talk further, but oddly comforted by Owain’s assurance that if he did die, his kin would be told.

Ranulf’s dreams trapped him in a fever-induced world of darkness and loss. Sometimes he was in familiar surroundings, back at Devizes or Bristol. More often he was under siege again at Oxford, watching Winchester go up in flames, thrashing about in a murky Cheshire pond. And always…there was trouble. Maude was in danger and he could not protect her. Annora was lost and he could not find her. He kept hearing her cry his name, but she was always out of sight, out of reach. Gilbert was trapped in that burning church, and he could do nothing. Again and again those he loved needed his help. Again and again he failed them.

His father was there, too, a remote figure never quite in focus. Robert, keeping his distance, looking sad and disappointed. And a gentle ghost, more than twenty years dead: Angharad, his mother. He’d not dreamed of her for years, and her face was indistinct, shadowy, but he knew it was she. He recognized the bright hair, the low-pitched voice, the soothing sounds of her Welsh. Unlike the other apparitions in these terrible dreams, she did not disappear when he reached out to her. Instead, she took his hand and held tight. He held tight, too, and she stayed with him. Through the worst of the delirium and fever and pain, he could sense her presence, a beacon in the dark, guiding him home.

The room was shuttered, but even the dim rushlight hurt Ranulf’s eyes. He was wondering where he was and why he felt so weak when a woman bent over the bed. She held a basin of water, dipped a cloth into it, and laid it upon his forehead. Her touch was sure, her fingers cool against his skin. He studied her through his lashes; she seemed somehow familiar and yet he could not remember seeing her before. “Who…are you?” The sound of his own voice startled him, for his words emerged as a croak. She was even more startled. She gasped and her hand jerked, spilling water onto the bed coverlets. When she spoke, her voice sounded strangely familiar, too, but he did not understand what she was trying to tell him. “I am sorry,” he mumbled. “I speak no Welsh…”

More Welsh rang out, but this voice was male. Joining the woman at Ranulf’s bedside, a greying, burly stranger beamed down at him. “We’d about given up on you, lad!” This Ranulf understood, and it puzzled him for a moment, before he realized that the man was now speaking French. Turning away, the man switched briefly back to Welsh, and another figure emerged from the shadows, this one a young girl, no more than fourteen or fifteen. “Ranulf…men do call you Ranulf? No, do not try to talk. For more days than I can count, we were sure each breath you drew was like to be your last! You do not know me?” The query followed by a hearty, booming laugh. “How could you? I am Rhodri ap Rhys, your uncle. And these are your cousins, Rhiannon and Eleri.”

“Your…your daughters?”

“My lord king’s message said that you were in a bad way. I thought it best to bring my lasses along, so that at least they’d have a chance to bid you farewell. And glad I am that I did. I’m not sure you’d have made it if not for Rhiannon here.”

Rhiannon murmured in Welsh, and her father patted her on the arm before turning back to Ranulf. “She speaks no French, but she still suspects that I’m bragging on her. I’m just speaking God’s Truth, though. Even after the doctor gave up, my girl did not. She never left your bedside if she could help it. She prayed for you and talked to you and held your hand, so you’d know, she said, that you were not alone.”

“Tell her,” Ranulf whispered, “that I did know…”

His young cousin had squeezed between Rhodri and Rhiannon so that she could get a better look at Ranulf. “Papa, his eyes are closed! He…he is not dead, is he?”

“No, child. He is sleeping again, that is all.”

Rhiannon leaned over, brushing her fingers lightly against Ranulf’s cheek. “He feels cooler,” she said. “Papa, do you truly think he will recover?”

“Yes, lass, I do. But I did not,” he admitted, “until now.”

Ranulf would have few memories of the days that followed. Mostly he slept. Owain Gwynedd was gone, back to his royal manor at Abergwyngregyn. The monk-priest had returned to his brethren at Basingwerk. Declaring that Ranulf no longer needed his care, the doctor, too, departed. But each time Ranulf awoke, his uncle and cousins were there.

He came to rely upon it, that they’d be close at hand whenever he needed them. Rhodri straddled a chair by the bed, translating French into Welsh and back again, demanding that Ranulf eat all the food he brought over from the castle kitchen, putting Ranulf in mind of a shepherd hovering over a lamb long given up for lost. When the boredom of the sickroom became too much for Eleri, she slipped out to explore the castle grounds and flirt with the garrison. But she volunteered to wash Ranulf’s hair, tried to talk him into letting her shave off his beard so he would look “properly Welsh,” and borrowed a lute to play for him at night before he fell asleep. And he was convinced that in all of Christendom, he could not have found a more devoted nurse than Rhiannon.

Unlike Eleri, Rhiannon never seemed to tire of her vigil. During the day, she was always within the sound of Ranulf’s voice, and after dark, she slept on a pallet by his bed so that she could hear him if he needed her in the night. It did not matter that he could not understand what she said; he lay still, listening to the ebb and flow of her soft-spoken Welsh, as lulling as the familiar patter of rain upon a roof, and he knew that he would not die in this alien place called Yr Wyddgrug, the “burial mound.” His cousin Rhiannon would not allow it.

When Rhodri opened the shutters, spring sunlight flooded the chamber. After a fortnight in the semi-gloom of a sickroom, Ranulf was dazzled by this sudden blaze of brightness. “Another week in here,” he told Rhodri, “and I’d have been blinder than any bat.”

Rhodri swung around to glare at him. “Do not joke about that-not ever!”

Ranulf blinked. “What did I say amiss?”

His bewilderment was not feigned, too sincere to doubt. “You truly do not know, Ranulf?”

“Know what?”

“That Rhiannon is blind.”

“No…that cannot be! She has been taking care of me, bringing me food, even pouring me wine…I saw her do it!”

“You sound just like all the others,” Rhodri said impatiently, “those who believe that to be blind is to be utterly helpless. Do not deny it, Ranulf. When you think of a blind man or woman, you think of a beggar, seeking alms by the roadside.”

“It is not that,” Ranulf insisted, not altogether truthfully. “You just took me by surprise. It never occurred to me that…that she could not see. She did not stumble or bump into things or-And I am proving your point,” he said, and Rhodri nodded.

“You’ll learn, lad,” he said tolerantly. “But do not start treating her any differently now that you know. My girl cannot abide pity.” Moving toward the bed, he looked down pensively at Ranulf. “I’ve a question to put to you. You’re on the mend for certes. But do you think you’re strong enough yet to travel? I think you’d do well enough in a horse litter, but if you’d rather wait a few more days, we can. It is up to you.”

“Where would we be going?”

“Why, home, lad. Back to the Conwy Valley, to Trefriw. You’ll stay with us whilst you regain your strength. You’ve grown up in your father’s world. Now it is time you got to know your mother’s world, too.”

“I do not understand,” Ranulf confessed. “I am a stranger to you, the son of your enemy. Why have you opened your hearts to me like this?”

Rhodri was puzzled, for the answer was so obvious. “Because,” he said, “you are my sister’s son.”