Ranulf’s jaw dropped. “Tell me you’re joking!”
“No, I am not. I knew that the life you’d had in Wales was over, that not even my father’s goodwill would be a strong enough shield. I understand that mulish pride of yours, knew it would compel you to obey Henry’s summons. But few others would understand. You’d be shunned, treated as if you were an outcast, a leper-if you were lucky. More likely you’d have been burned out by your outraged neighbors. You needed an excuse for your inexplicable loyalty to the English king, and so I provided you with one.”
“By making me into an accursed spy, a man without honor or loyalties? Christ Jesus, Hywel, how could you do that?”
Hywel was expecting just such a reaction and shrugged. Rhiannon’s response was less forbearing. “I’ve heard enough of honor to last me a lifetime! Where is the honor in exile, Ranulf?”
Ranulf turned to stare at her. “You knew what Hywel had done? You approved?”
“Yes, I knew, and indeed I approved! More than approved, I was grateful beyond words. My only regret was that you’d have to be told, for I knew you’d never understand. You are a good and decent man, Ranulf, but in some ways, you are as blind as I am.”
Ranulf was stunned by her outburst. Their quarrels were so infrequent and so mild that he’d been lulled into believing Rhiannon was incapable of genuine rage. After the turbulence and turmoil he’d endured with the high-strung, unpredictable Annora, he’d come to cherish the tranquillity he’d found in marriage to Rhiannon. He saw now that theirs was a false peace, purchased at the cost of her conscience. Again and again she had given him her unwavering support, her understanding, her acceptance-as Annora never had. She had suppressed her own fears and misgivings, always putting his needs first, even when the price of protecting his honor might well be banishment from the homeland she so loved.
Getting swiftly to his feet, he crossed the chamber to his wife, then took her in his arms. “I am sorry, love,” he whispered, “so sorry. You are in the right and I am an idiot.”
Rhiannon shook her head vehemently. “No, you are not. If our sons grow to manhood with even half of your courage and integrity, they will be very fortunate and I will be well content.”
Whatever she might have said next was lost as Ranulf kissed her. Hywel waited until he thought their embrace had gone on long enough and then said, “I can do without the hug, but what about an apology to me, too, Ranulf?”
Ranulf smiled at the other man over his wife’s shoulder. “I guess I do owe you one,” he conceded. “Actually your idea was ingenious-in a sly sort of way. I can understand how others might believe it, for you’ve always been glib of tongue, Hywel. But how could my uncle Rhodri imagine for a moment that I’d engage in such double-dealing? And Gilbert and Eleri-do they not know me better than that?”
“I can answer that,” Rhiannon said. “They believed it because they wanted to believe it, Ranulf, because they needed to believe it. They love you enough to banish disbelief.”
“Whereas you should have seen the horrified reactions of my brothers Davydd and Rhodri, who love you not.” Hywel grinned, remembering. “They were looking forward to a public hanging as soon as the opportunity presented itself. When they went running to my father in hopes of a denial, they were confounded when he confirmed it instead!”
“Owain did that?” Ranulf asked in astonishment. “You must be in higher favor than I thought, Hywel!” But almost at once, his amusement faded. “I would thank you,” he said seriously, “for what you tried to do on my behalf.”
Hywel cocked a brow. “ ‘Tried to do’?” he echoed. “It seems to me that my plan was a brilliant success, if I say so myself.”
“It would have been,” Ranulf agreed, “if not for the maiming of the hostages.”
“You think my father blames you for that?”
“His sons will never see another sunrise because of the English king… and I am Harry’s uncle.”
“You are also the one man who spoke up for the hostages. Only one voice argued against the maiming, and it was yours.”
Ranulf looked searchingly at Hywel, hope suddenly soaring to the quickening beat of his heart. “Are you saying Lord Owain is willing to let me stay in his domains?”
“He said that words rarely count for more than blood, but Chester is one of those times. You may make your home in Gwynedd till the end of your days and none will challenge your right to be here, to call yourself Welsh. On that, my father has spoken.”
Ranulf exhaled an uneven breath and then whirled back toward Rhiannon. She returned his embrace wholeheartedly, but her eyes prickled with tears, for she knew that the events at Chester had inflicted a grievous wound, one that would leave a deep jagged scar upon her husband’s soul.
Henry gazed down from the battlements of Chester Castle upon the ruination of his Welsh campaign. His fleet had finally arrived from Dublin, was anchored in the bend of the River Dee, and each time he looked upon that motley assemblage of ships, he felt anger stirring anew, embers from a fire that had been smoldering since their forced retreat from the Berwyns. He had contracted for galleys, but some of the ships riding at anchor were cogs. Instead of warships, he had flat-bottomed cargo vessels with which to ravage the Welsh coast… and not even enough of those.
“Did you ever see a more pitiful fleet in all your born days?” he demanded of the young Earl of Chester. “Shredded rigging, torn sails, lost oars-it is a bloody miracle that they did not sink like stones in Dublin’s harbor. Any man setting foot on one of those wrecks had better know how to walk on water, or else have made his peace with the Almighty.”
Hugh fidgeted nervously, wanting to offer reassurance or hope but checked by the reality floating below them on the river. One of the ships had been run aground into a mudbank to patch leaks, and the crew was scrambling to complete the repairs before the onset of high tide. In the shadow of another ship, a raft had been launched, and as it bobbed and pitched, several men set about recaulking the seams with a sticky mixture of tar and moss. Hugh had to admit it was a sorry spectacle meeting their eyes. Striving to shine the best light upon the debacle, he ventured to remind Henry that the ships had been mauled in a storm off the Irish coast. “But once they are mended, they may yet inflict damage amongst the Welsh.”
The other men winced at that, but Henry did not erupt as they expected. This muddled youth was his favorite cousin Maud’s son, after all, and so he contented himself with a barbed sarcasm. “Aye-there is always the chance that the Welsh will die laughing at their first sight of this great armada.”
Hugh didn’t have Henry’s familiarity with other languages and he wasn’t sure what an armada was, but he knew better than to ask. He was finding it a trial to be his king’s host; Henry had moved to Hugh’s castle at Chester to await the fleet, and now Hugh hoped that he’d decide to go back to Shotwick, where his army was encamped. Hugh had always been intimidated by his royal cousin the king, but Henry’s temper was exceptionally choleric these days and it was all too easy to provoke his ire.
Henry continued to watch the beached ship, his the morbid curiosity of a man with a toothache, compelled to keep touching his tongue to the tooth to see if it still hurt. It had been two days since that tattered fleet had limped into the Dee estuary, two days since he’d realized that his hopes of continuing the Welsh war had foundered with those Irish ships. The Welsh princes had defied him and gotten away with it. He had nothing to show for all his efforts but a depleted Exchequer, a lost summer, and a trail of shallow graves.
His bleak reverie was interrupted by a shout from the gatehouse; riders were coming in. A cursory glance down into the bailey showed him that there were women among them, but he had no interest in these new-comers. He would have welcomed his cousin, the tart-tongued worldly Maud, but she was in Anjou with Eleanor, planning to remain until after the babe was born. He could think of no other female he cared to see and he resumed his gloomy surveillance of the Irish ships. But then Hugh gave a sudden whoop.