CHAPTER SIX
‘We must leave tomorrow,’ Rhiannon insisted in the conversation that followed.
‘Such haste!’ said Mamgi.
Dafydd agreed with Rhiannon. ‘The weather will turn. We have not much time if we are to take the cart. With no proper path our progress will be slow enough… We cannot risk being stopped by snow, either going out or coming in. Lady Gwen is right in what she says.’
Mamgi shook her head. ‘Call her by her true name. Rhiannon.’
He apologised but Rhiannon was quick to support him.
‘I fear it will take everyone some time to become accustomed to it,’ she said. ‘Not least of all myself.’
It had already been agreed that she should take Dafydd and Brynach with her.
They would present themselves as simple crofters, down for a rare visit to town to purchase necessary things for the winter, which was, after all, close to the truth.
They would take two live lambs to barter with, as well as some willow baskets made by the children.
As for money, they had only a handful of coins between them.
Rhiannon’s only possession of value was the dagger her father had given her.
It pained her to think of parting with it, but she had offered to do so.
She had been relieved when no-one would allow her to give it up.
Instead, when the morning arrived, they put what money they had in a leather purse and tied the lambs and baskets onto the cart, along with five sheepskins.
‘We will get what we can,’ Rhiannon promised Mair, who had wistfully asked for hens, should there be any.
Brynach took up the reins and Dafydd elected to walk alongside. Rhiannon hesitated, making Mamgi laugh.
‘Where has your hurry gone to, merch? Away with you. If it is to be done, let it be done swiftly.’
Still she hesitated. She lifted her chin, turning her face east towards the rising sun, listening, almost reading the chill breeze.
She knew not what it was she was waiting for, yet she lingered a short while longer, pacing back and fore while the assembled villagers looked on, perplexed.
At last she stopped, smiled, and then clapped her hands together.
‘Now,’ she nodded, turning to take hold of Dilly’s bridle. ‘It is time.’
Their progress down the upper reaches of the valley was, as Dafydd had predicted, frustratingly slow.
The summer growth of bracken had died back and withered, but still the brown stems tangled themselves around the wheels of the old cart.
The lambs bleated their displeasure at being part of the party.
Dilly was unused to leaving the safety of the homestead and need encouragement and cajoling to lean into the harness and drag the wagon forwards.
Conversely, on the steeper downward reaches both men were required to use their strength to slow the cart so that the mare was not startled by its weight against her.
After much discussion, they had chosen a route that would not take them through the village.
They could not risk encountering new inhabitants, or the new resident of the Lord of Cwmdu’s house, if there was one.
Instead they travelled on to the west of the river Rhiangoll, from where they were able to peer across to the village from a safe distance.
By this point the ground had levelled out and there was an old sheep track, widened by years of use, upon which the cart moved more easily.
The three gazed in the direction of their old homes.
All still seemed to be standing, even the small wooden church.
The place was eerily quiet. No children scampered between the houses.
No livestock grazed on the pastures outside the village.
No smoke came from chimneys or from the smithy’s furnace.
Even the nobleman’s house stood empty, dark and cold.
Rhiannon was glad neither of the men chose to remark upon this, as she knew they felt the sadness of it keenly, and they must put those feelings aside and press on with their important task.
It was another hour before they reached the valley floor and joined the rough road that led to Talgar.
Brynach held the reins, with Dafydd sitting beside him.
Both were watchful and wary. Rhiannon sat on the back of the cart, facing the way they had come, the better to keep watch for soldiers or people from the town.
She felt a sudden nervousness. She had not, until that moment, considered how long it had been since she had spoken to anyone from outside the village.
Aside from the danger of meeting de Chapelle’s men, or revealing her true identity and being denounced as an enemy of the new Lord of Brycheiniog, she wondered how she would fare when required to talk to strangers.
Her dress was faded threadbare. Her belt was frayed and worn.
Her boots had been repaired so many times they were more patches than original leather.
She set her jaw, rising above the disadvantages of her clothing.
She must remember what she had been sent to do.
She must remember how many people were depending on her. She must remember who she was.
They were twenty minutes or so from entering the town when she saw a lone rider some way behind them.
His horse was travelling at a steady, long-strided canter, so that he was gradually gaining on them.
As he came closer she could make out more detail.
His was a fine horse, crow black, with a flowing mane.
The rider sat tall in the saddle. He wore a helmet that shone beneath the low winter sun, which also reflected off the hilt of the sword at his side.
He sat his horse well, comfortable in its fast but controlled pace, holding the reins in one hand, as they covered the stony ground, a wooden shield on his left arm.
As the distance between rider and cart shortened, he minutely adjusted his position in the saddle and closed his fingers over the leather, communicating to the horse his wish to slow up.
Rhiannon pivoted in her seat, whispering quickly to the men at the front of the cart. ‘Have a care. A rider approaches. A man-at-arms, by my reckoning.’
Dafydd and Brynach glanced back, checking on the stranger with a practiced look, assessing the possible danger. Rhiannon saw Brynach place his hand on the knife he had beneath his jacket.
‘Do nothing with haste!’ she told him. ‘We are but shepherds fetching winter supplies.’
‘Does he wear the king’s colours?’ Brynach asked her.
Rhiannon could not be certain. Now that he was much closer she could see the rider wore chain mail beneath a tabard and a crest on his shield, but she recognised neither colour nor heraldry.
‘Treat him as friend, but speak only if you must,’ she hissed back, unable to say more as the rider had come within earshot.
He looked at Rhiannon and slowed his horse further, so that it walked but a few paces from her.
The stallion’s coat gleamed with sweat from a long journey, but was not distressed or fatigued.
The rider leaned forward and patted its arched neck, encouraging it to be calm and walk at a resting pace.
Under the stranger’s gaze Rhiannon felt yet more aware of her dreary clothes and dowdy appearance.
It was a long while since she had been in the company of a young man, there not being any her own age at Blaencwm.
She had not ever thought to miss the attentions of the prospective suitors her father had found for her, but now she realised there was something else she had lost when they had fled to the hills.
She had put aside that part of herself that was a woman in her youth.
She had become a member of the settlement, and a pupil to Mamgi, She had forgotten what it was to feel the quickening of the pulse when in the company of an attractive, attentive man.
‘Good morning to you, mistress,’ said the stranger, his voice low and lilting, betraying traces, Rhiannon believed, of a Welsh ancestry.
This thought pleased her, and allowed her to lower her guard just a fraction.
The Norman king preferred to gift his newly won lands to other foreigners.
He was not known for his allegiances with Cymry.
And yet here was clearly a man-at-arms, and there was no way of telling in whose employ he rode.
By way of reply she merely inclined her head and lowered her eyes.
The rider tried again.
‘Do you travel to market?’ he asked, nodding at the fat, fidgeting lambs secured onto the back of the cart.
Rhiannon raised her eyebrows then, looking directly at him. ‘Why no,’ she said, keeping her face as serious as she was able, ‘I take them to their dancing lessons, for their steps are shockingly clumsy.’
The rider’s eyes widened and he smiled. Rhiannon noticed how much his features were softened by their new arrangement, making him far less fierce-looking.
‘By my oath, I would have the name of any maid clever enough to teach a lamb to dance. Will you not give it me?’
She silently chided herself for falling into conversation with the man. It would surely have been safer to effect a coldness and not speak with him at all. But it was too late for that tactic now. She hesitated, weighing up her options, and then said simply. ‘Rhiannon. My name is Rhiannon.’
The rider nodded, waiting, saying no more, but evidently expecting it.
When she did not speak further he pushed his horse on so that he was riding beside the cart and close enough to her that she could have reached out and touched him.
After another moment he asked. ‘Will you not have my name from me, Rhiannon?’
Hearing him speak aloud her new identity sent a shock of delight through her, in part due to her owning that new version of herself, and in part due to the way her name, without any formal title attached to it, sounded in his voice.