Once the meal had finally ended and the servants had cleared the table, Ranulf chose to confront his demons head-on, waiting only until Morgan and Mallt were shepherded out of the hall. “I know you sent word to Hywel of his father’s death. But can you be sure your messenger reached him?”
“No,” Peryf admitted, “I cannot. Tathan is a good man, one I’d trust with my soul’s last breath. But soon after he sailed, the weather turned foul. For all I know, his ship was one of the hundreds that have foundered in that accursed Irish Sea. Even if he landed safely, he could still have come to grief ere he found Hywel. I was told that there was a man so eager to catch the ship that he was rowed out to board whilst it was making ready to leave the harbor. I could not help wondering if that unforeseen passenger had an urgent reason of his own-an ungodly one-for wanting to take Tathan’s ship.”
Rhodri looked perplexed, but Ranulf understood at once. He was taken aback, though, for Peryf’s fears were much darker than his. “You truly think they would try to murder your messenger?”
“What better way to keep Hywel from learning of his father’s death? To keep him in Ireland until it’s too late?”
Rhodri always kept his crutch within easy reach. As he pushed his chair back now, it clattered to the floor and he never even noticed. “What are you saying, Peryf? Who are they?”
“Cristyn and her brood. Who else?”
Peryf’s candor hushed the hall. Ranulf leaned across the table, clamping his hand upon the other man’s arm. “Have you any proof of these suspicions?”
“I do not need proof. I know in the marrow of my bones that Cristyn would scruple at nothing to gain power for her sons.”
Ranulf had often heard Hywel joke about his foster brother’s “doom and gloom disposition,” but he could not dismiss Peryf’s fears as easily as Hywel would have done. The natural optimism of his youth had been tempered by life’s ongoing lessons, his equivocal status as one who was both a king’s son and a bastard, and the sobering realization that the race was not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
“What would you have me do, Peryf?”
Peryf’s smile was rueful. “Am I as easily read as that? I have indeed come to ask for your help, Ranulf.” Holding up his hand before Ranulf could respond. “Wait! Do not be so quick to agree, for it is no small favor I seek. Would you be willing to sail for Ireland and find Hywel?”
Ranulf’s acceptance would once have come as quickly and unthinkingly as his next breath. But it was not enough to understand that his wife deserved a say in their family’s future, not unless he also acted upon it. A winter voyage to Ireland was often a widow-maker. He looked over at Rhiannon, and with the intuition honed by two decades of marital intimacy, she sensed his eyes upon her, heard his unspoken question.
“Yes,” she said unhesitatingly, and Ranulf thanked the Almighty for giving him this remarkable woman.
“I owe Hywel more than I could ever begin to calculate and he is as dear to me as my brothers in blood. I will right gladly go to Ireland to fetch him home.”
Ranulf’s first thought had been to take ship at Chester, for it was far larger than any of the Welsh ports and attracted numerous ships engaged in the Irish trade. But Peryf was as methodical and farsighted as he was pessimistic, and he’d sent scouts to keep watch over Mon’s harbors and cove-notched coastline. He was able to tell Ranulf, therefore, that there was a cog at Aber Menai, doing rigging repairs. And so Ranulf and the sons of Cedifor took the Llan-faes ferry across the Menai Straits and then headed west.
Aber Menai was the island’s most ancient port, a natural crossing for Welsh princes on their way to the royal manor of Aberffraw, and according to Peryf, both Davydd and Rhodri were reported to have been at Aberffraw for the past fortnight. Ranulf was rapidly developing respect for Peryf’s surveillance system, and it occurred to him that Hywel could do far worse than to make Peryf his seneschal. For himself, he sought no such honors. His soul would always be riven in twain, torn between his love for Wales and his loyalty to the English Crown.
After a cold, clear night strewn with stars, the day was born with an ice-edged caul. Snow from a midweek storm still clung in spots, and Ranulf’s breath was frosted in cloudlets of wispy white. The island climate was usually milder than the more mountainous heights of Gwynedd and this spell of frigid weather had surprised the sailors, slowing their repairs. But the ship’s master had assured Ranulf that they’d be ready to sail by the morrow and Ranulf could only take the man at his word.
Picking up shells, Ranulf sought to skip them across the water’s roiling surface, without much success. The cog was anchored out in the harbor, its single mast and furled sails silhouetted against the horizon like a tree stripped of leaves. Several children were playing at the water’s edge, chasing a spotted dog. The small cluster of houses looked out of place, as if dropped there by accident, naked and vulnerable to wind and the treacherous tides of Yr Afon Fenai. The church was tolling a mournful “passing bell” to seek prayers for the soul of one hovering near death. All in all, it was as bleak a scene as Ranulf could envision, an accurate mirror of his own mood.
He suspected that his edginess was due to the looming sea voyage. Despite the many times that he’d braved Channel crossings, he had never ventured out into the ocean itself, and he’d have been quite content to go to his grave with that particular challenge unmet. Now that he was committed to the endeavor, though, he was impatient to start, finding this time ashore to be as unpleasant in its own way as the time aboard was certain to be.
“Ranulf!” Turning at the sound of his name, he saw Caradog ap Cedifor ambling toward him. Caradog was the youngest of Cedifor’s many sons, with more than twenty years stretching between him and Peryf, and in consequence, he was the least-known to Ranulf of Hywel’s foster brothers. Like Peryf, he was of medium height, stocky and well muscled, with wind-blown hair the color of wet sand and eyes bright with the intrepid spirit of the young. He would be accompanying Ranulf to that distant isle known to the Welsh as Iwerddon, and he actually seemed delighted at the chance to risk drowning in the frigid waters of the Irish Sea.
“Peryf intends to row out to the ship and see if he can coax or coerce the master into sailing tonight. You want to come along?”
“Why not?” Ranulf followed Caradog up the beach, shivering as they headed into the wind. Knowing that Caradog’s father had Irish kindred, he asked the younger man if he’d ever been to Ireland, getting a toss of Caradog’s sandy head in reply.
“Nay, I have not. But Peryf crossed the Irish Sea when he went along with Hywel to visit Hywel’s lady mother.” Caradog’s smile soon became an impish grin. “Hywel says if ever there was a man born to spend all his days a hundred miles inland, it is Peryf. He fed the fish from Mon to Dublin and back again, and for a good year afterward, he’d get greensick at the mere mention of ships or the sea. That is why he dared not offer to come with you to find Hywel. Even rowing out into the harbor will likely cost him dear.”
“I’d wondered about that,” Ranulf confided. “I’ve been wondering, too, why Peryf turned to me. Since you’d already offered to go to Ireland on your own, why the need for me?”
Caradog’s laugh was carried off by the wind. “You ought to be able to guess the reason for that! Hywel says you were the old king’s youngest son.”
“Yes, I was…” Ranulf was puzzled and then amused. “Peryf still sees you as his little brother, does he?”
“Of course, and he secretly fears that I’d either drink myself into oblivion or become so besotted with the Dublin whores that I’d forget altogether about Hywel!”
Caradog laughed again, with such infectious humor that Ranulf laughed, too, glad that at least he’d have good company on this perilous journey. It was then that they heard the shout, saw Peryf running up the beach toward them.