CHAPTER TWO
That afternoon, Gwen went out into the garden with her mother.
Lady Olwen took great pride in her rose beds, and liked to talk to her daughter while she tended them.
In truth, Gwen believed she wished to distract her from the guest they would soon be entertaining.
To keep her under her watchful eye, fearing that the girl might take it into her head to go wandering upon the hills when she should be readying herself, arriving home looking a fright with no time for remedy.
It would not be the first occasion on which she had employed such a ruse.
They took their slave, Rufus, into the garden to help them.
He had been born to slave parents owned by Gwen’s grandfather, his ancestors having belonged to a Roman general, their forebears living their lives in Rome.
Fifteen years older than Gwen, he had been a steady, helpful presence throughout her childhood.
As a young girl, when she slipped from her nurse maid to roam the mountains it was Rufus who was sent after her.
When she was playing through dusk with the village children it was Rufus who would come, often led to her by the sound of her laughter, to urge her home before her absence was discovered.
It was he who taught her to ride and showed her how to draw a bow.
He had become her unofficial protector. Her father had been glad of his strength and loyalty when she was a child.
Now that she had become a woman, however, he disapproved of her spending any time alone with him, deeming it unseemly.
Lady Olwen, therefore, mindful of the importance of the childhood friendship to her daughter, chose to include him in tasks they could all happily share.
Among the flowers stood an ancient apple tree through which a climbing rose twisted.
Rufus climbed up into the boughs on his mistress’s instructions so that he could secure some of the wandering shoots.
The three snipped and tied the plants beneath the soft summer sun, the scent of the flowers making Gwen languorous.
She clumsily grasped a stem and found a large thorn.
‘Ouch!’ She put a finger to her mouth to staunch the bleeding.
Her mother shook her head. ‘You have never cared for my roses,’ she said
‘I favour a flower that does not bite me.’
‘You favour wild plants that grow where they will, need little tending, and resist being tamed.’ She paused to nod at the tangle of honeysuckle that grew profusely over the far wall.
She gave a small smile, peering up from beneath her banded headdress.
Her eyes crinkled, and it was easy for Gwen to understand how her father had loved her for so many years. Above them, Rufus stifled laughter.
Gwen affected not to be aware of her mother’s comment on her own nature.
‘It is true,’ she said, ‘I am fond of honeysuckle. I find its scent more to my liking, its blooms less brash, its choice of woodland or wild meadow for a home more pleasing than an enclosed garden. I am happy it chooses to grow here too, with little encouragement.’
‘Encouragement, indeed! That plant of yours would overwhelm my garden if it were permitted to do so. Truly, I have never known such vigorous and abundant flowers as those you tend, child. It would please me if you could apply yourself to my roses with equal effect.’
Lady Olwen stepped forward and as she did so Rufus gave a cry.
He had let go the pruning knife. Gwen saw that her mother stood directly in its path.
Without forming a thought for her actions, Gwen flung herself forwards, stretching her hand up to snatch the knife from the air.
Her mother, with her back to her daughter, was entirely taken up with her task and so missed the incident.
Rufus, however, had seen what happened. He had seen the unnatural speed with which Gwen reacted.
He had noticed the impossible skill of the catch that had saved Lady Olwen from serious injury.
Gwen passed him back the knife with a smile and a shrug.
In truth, she too was unsettled by what she had just done, but she had no wish to alarm her friend, nor to make more of something that puzzled her.
‘Daughter,’ her mother turned, handing her three long stemmed roses, ‘these are at their best and will remain so if we keep them cool. You may wear them in your headdress, the better to impress your father’s guests.’
‘I pray they have thorns aplenty, then, so that no eager suitor will dare touch me,’ Gwen joked, bringing an exasperated smile from her mother. Something caused Gwen’s own smile to quickly fade. She sensed rather than heard something. Lady Olwen noticed the change in her daughter.
‘What is it, child?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure… a rider, I think.’
‘I hear none. Rufus, you can see further down the valley from your perch. Tell us who approaches.’
‘Why, no-one, my lady.’
‘Gwen, your mind is running to dreams again. Your head is ever full of fancies and whimsy.’
‘I was certain…’
‘It is as I tell you,’ Lady Olwen insisted, ‘you spend too many an hour on matters that are of no importance and not practical.’ It seemed she had more to say on the subject, but Rufus interrupted her.
‘Wait! Yes, there is a rider, only now brought into view. He moves at speed.’
It was then the sound of hooves galloping over the summer-hardened earth confirmed what Gwen had promised.
They could not have guessed how that sound would herald such a fateful, brutal change in all their lives.
The women exchanged glances of concern. They hurried to the gate in time to see a single rider, his horse’s flanks lathered, its mouth foaming, as he urged it on yet faster.
He galloped past them, racing for the house.
‘A messenger, Lady Olwen,’ said Rufus.
‘Go,’ she instructed him. ‘Find out what has sent him here with such reckless haste.’
Rufus ran for the house. Gwen returned her knife to her belt, they picked up their baskets and hurried after him. By the time they reached the front door he had disappeared inside. Lord Llewelyn’s manservant could be heard shouting for his master.
‘What is it?’ Lady Olwen called in through the open doorway, her own hesitancy giving away her fear. She was reluctant to enter, as if keeping a distance from bad tidings could deny them their existence. Rufus came charging back out.
‘There are soldiers on their way!’
‘Oh! Baron Shrewsbury’s men?’ she paled.
‘It is not known, my lady. Lord Llewelyn told me to take you inside. We must bar the doors.’
‘He thinks they will come here?’ she asked. ‘To our home?’
There were shouts from the stables behind the house. Gwen hitched up the unhelpfully long skirts of her dress and started for where the horses were kept.
‘Lady Gwen!’ Rufus called after her. ‘Lord Llewelyn says you are to be kept safe!’
‘Gwen! Can you not this once be obedient?’ her mother begged.
‘Take Lady Olwen in, Rufus. Do not leave her side.’ She ran on, deaf to her mother’s cries.
In the barn where the horses were stabled Gwen found her father and the men he kept close as his personal guard, all saddling their steeds as quickly as they were able, servants and slaves scrambling to help them. Her father’s beloved wolfhound, Taran, shadowed his every step.
‘Father, where do you go?’
‘Towards Talgar. There is a war-band gathering.’
‘But, whose? Surely the French Baron will not descend upon us, or at least, not from the north.’
He tightened the girth on his stallion’s saddle, while his manservant buckled the sword at his hip.
‘It matters not whose men they are, daughter; they are intent on taking this valley for themselves.’
‘But, it is yours, father. It is your birthright.’
‘Given my father by a Welsh Prince. Think you that the King of France who now sits upon the throne of England cares for such details? He wishes his own nobles to take what they will and keep it for themselves. In such a way he shores up his own defences. Brynach! To horse, man, for God’s sake!’
‘Father,’ Gwen shook her head, ‘there are so few of you…’
‘More will join us, from Lord Eifion’s estate, and that of his brother.
Others will come from neighbouring holds once they hear the alarm has been raised.
’ His servant held the fidgeting horse as he swung up into the saddle and snatched up the reins.
All the horses had sensed the urgency of the day and stamped and fretted, some whinnying, others pawing at the ground.
Her father was an excellent horseman and paid no heed to their antics.
He looked down at her then and for a brief moment he was not Llewelyn ap Ioreth, Lord of Cwmdu and the Black Mountains, but the father of a much-loved and frightened girl.
He leaned down and touched her cheek. His gaze was so tender it brought tears to her eyes.
Did he know then, she wondered, what impossible odds he faced?
‘You have a good heart, child. Follow it,’ he told her. And then he signalled to his men, marshalling them. ‘To me! We must meet our foes before they reach the valley’s end. Only there will our number matter less.’
‘Wait!’ Gwen put her hand on the reins. ‘What of the villagers? They too must take refuge in the hall.’
‘There is not time.’
‘But we must warn them!’
‘Get to your mother, Gwen!’
So saying he turned his horse from her grip and gave the animal its head, for it needed no spurs to send it plunging forwards, out of the barn, clattering over the stones of the yard, and out through the gate.
Taran ran at the horse’s side. The men-at-arms followed, bristling with arrows and swords and axes, shields strapped to their left arms, their helmets low on their heads.