A Memory of Love (8 page)

Gwynllian uerch Gruffydd gave thanks before the altar of the church daily for her niece's progress. It was truly miraculous. After the midday meal Rhonwyn joined Sister Una in the kitchens so she might see how meals were planned and prepared. Here her progress was not as quick, and Sister Una complained to the abbess that her niece could burn water. The infirmarian, Sister Dicra, was kinder, for her new pupil seemed to have a knack for healing and concocting the potions, salves, lotions, syrups, and teas needed to cure a cough or make a wound heal easier.

“The lass has a healing touch, Reverend Mother,” Sister Dicra said enthusiastically.

“She'll need it to cure the bellyaches she's going to give with her cooking,” Sister Una remarked dryly.

“She doesn't need to know
how
to cook,” the abbess said, “just how it should be done. The castle will have its own cook. Have you taught her how to make soap for both clothing and skin yet?”

“We begin tomorrow,” Sister Una replied. “I hope she has more of a knack for that.”

The abbess turned to Sister Braith. “How is she coming with her weaving, embroidery, and sewing skills, my sister?”

“Slowly,” answered the nun. “Rhonwyn has little patience, as you know. She finds sewing and embroidery foolish. Weaving, however, seems to calm her. She says there is a logic to it,” chuckled Sister Braith. “I have shown her how to spin, and she seems to like that quite well.”

They were progressing. Slowly in some areas, faster in others, the abbess thought silently. “The fabrics have arrived from Hereford,” she told her companions. “We shall have to fill Rhonwyn's bridal chest ourselves if it is to get done.”

“And the relic?” Sister Winifred inquired.

“My brother sends word he has obtained it at great cost. He is bringing it to us himself.”

The prince arrived several days later, accompanied only by two of his men. He handed the bejeweled gold box to his sister. “Twenty gold florins, this cost me,” he growled at her. “The mother superior at St. Mary's-in-the-Gate ought to be hawking maidenheads, she haggled so closely with me. It had better be worth it, Gwynllian.”

“Would you like to see your daughter?” the abbess asked him as she stroked her prize.

“You have begun, then?” he said eagerly, visibly relieved.

“Of course,” she told him. “There was no choice if we are to be ready by spring, Llywelyn.” She reached for the bell on the table and rang it, instructing the nun who answered her call to fetch the lady Rhonwyn at once.

Llywelyn ap Gruffydd gaped in surprise for a moment as his daughter entered the room. She was garbed in a graceful deep blue gown with long, tight sleeves and girded at the waist with a simple twisted gold rope. Her pale gilt hair was beginning to grow out. It was clean and almost to her shoulders now. On her head she wore a simple chaplet with fresh flowers. She bowed to her aunt first and then to her father.

“You sent for me, my lady abbess?” she asked.

“Your father wished to see you before he departed, my child,” Gwynllian answered quietly.

“She's speaking in the Norman tongue!” ap Gruffydd said excitedly.

“I am learning, my lord. I am told this is the language the English use, although there is another,” Rhonwyn replied.

“Aye, but what you're learning is what you'll need.” The prince turned to his sister. “The transformation is amazing! Are you certain she isn't ready to go yet?”

“Nay, Llywelyn, she most certainly is not!” the abbess said. “Do not be in such a hurry. This is small progress, and we have much more to do, not to mention a wardrobe to sew. You cannot take her until the spring. Come on her birthday. Unless, of course, in the meantime, she decides to become one of us,” the abbess teased her brother.

“God forbid!” the prince cried.

Rhonwyn laughed. “Have no fear, my lord, this life your sister my aunt leads is not for me. I will be ready to do my duty when you return for me in April.”

“Bid your farewell, Rhonwyn, and then you are dismissed,” Gwynllian said.

“Adieu, my lord,” Rhonwyn told him, bowing again, then she departed the room.

“She never calls you
Tad
,” Gwynllian remarked softly.

“The lad does,” he returned. “Rhonwyn holds me responsible for her mam's death. She has never liked me, sister. With the logic of a child she wanted her mam all to herself, and she resented it each time I came to visit my fair Vala. She has never gotten over it, I fear, but it matters not as long as she respects and obeys me.”

“I do not know how much she respects you, Llywelyn, but she will do her duty by you. Rhonwyn will do you proud, and if she proves to be a good breeder, her English lord will have a large family. She will need her husband's loyalty when you and the English eventually come to a parting of the ways, which I have not a doubt you will.”

“That is her fate. Mine is greater,” he replied. “Now, sister, I must go. You have your relic and everything else you have asked of me.” He handed her two small leather bags. “My daughter's fees,” he said, dropping the first one in her hand, “and your gold bezants,” he concluded, handing her the second little bag. “I am pleased by the progress I see in Rhonwyn. When I return for her in the spring, I expect a complete transformation.”

“You will have it, brother,” Gwynllian said.

“I know I will. Your word has always been good, sister, and I thank you for what you are doing, even if it has cost me dearly.”

She laughed at him. “Do not complain, Llywelyn. That for which you pay nothing is worth nothing. Godspeed to you now.”

The winter came, and snow covered the hills. The sheep were brought in from the far pastures and kept within the walls at night to protect them from the wolves. It was a festive season, Rhonwyn discovered. The feast of St. Catherine was celebrated in late November, and there were a host of other saints' days leading up to Christ's Mass, which celebrated the birth of Jesus, whom Rhonwyn had now been taught was God's son come to earth to expiate man's sins. For all her rough upbringing, Rhonwyn found Christianity comforting. The notion of a god's son dying for mere mortals was both generous and honorable in her eyes. The abbess smiled when Rhonwyn told her that. She was grateful her niece approved of the concept of religion at all. While she found the thought of delivering a full-blown pagan to the English amusing, she did not think her brother would agree. She giggled in spite of herself at the picture it presented. Then she saw to it that her niece was baptized on Christmas Day.

With Twelfth Night came the end of the festive season. Rhonwyn settled down and worked harder than ever. She was learning that the brain was as difficult and as skilled a weapon as her alborium. She was now put in the care of Sister Rhan, a nun whose plump and cheerful countenance belied an incredible intellect. Sister Rhan, somewhere in middle age, had once, according to the gossip Elen and Arlais offered, been a powerful lord's mistress. If the rumors were to be believed, she had also dressed as a boy and studied with the greatest minds in England.

“You have intelligence, Rhonwyn,” Sister Rhan said the first time they came to study together. “Your intellect and reason will serve you far better in the long run than your body. That is how I held my lord's interest for so many years until he died.”

“Then the gossip is true?” Rhonwyn was surprised to hear the nun admitting to what she had now been taught was a sin.

Sister Rhan laughed. “Aye, 'tis true, and I have never made a secret of it, my child. Once I loved and was loved. I was faithful to him as he was to me.”

“But he had a wife,” Rhonwyn said.

“Indeed he did, and a very good woman the lady Arlette was, too. She brought him excellent lands to add to his own and gave him healthy children whom she raised to be regardful and devout. He treated her with devotion and great respect, even as he did me. We each served a purpose in his life. When he died, his lady wife and I washed his body and sewed him into his shroud together. She is a benefactress of Mercy Abbey now.”

“A man can love more than one woman, then,” Rhonwyn said thoughtfully. “I did not know that. I thought once the choice was made and the vows spoken, a husband and wife cleaved to each other only.”

“Ideally, but not always,” Sister Rhan answered her. “But we are not here, my child, to discuss my past sins. You have mastered both Norman and Latin. You can read and write it as well, although sometimes you are impatient with your letters. Your housewifely skills are, at best, passable, but you do not shine in that venue. The abbess believes your mind can absorb more serious learning, and so she has sent you to me. We shall study together grammar, rhetoric, logic, music, arithmetic, and astronomy. I will help you to become a support to your husband, so even when he becomes bored with your young body, he will find your mind invaluable to him. You will find much satisfaction in aiding your lord for the betterment of your lives and the lives of the children you will have together, Rhonwyn.”

“Then marital love doesn't last,” the young girl observed.

“If there is love at all, and do not mistake lust for love,” Sister Rhan warned her.

“What is the difference?” Rhonwyn demanded to know. “How shall I make the distinction?”

“Excellent! Excellent!” the nun approved. “You are thinking. The abbess was right to send you to me. Lust is when your bodies crave each other for no reason. The urge will be strong and fierce. Love, however, is an entirely different thing. Love is a powerful yearning not just for the body of the object of your affection, but for everything about him. You will be unhappy out of his sight. The mere sound of his voice will set your heart to racing. You will put his interests ahead of your own because you want him to be happy. Ideally he will feel the same about you. Just being held in his arms will bring you a warm contentment. Ah, my child, love is very difficult to explain. You will know it when it strikes you, and you will find that when you make love then, it is entirely different than just pure and unbridled lust.”

“I know nothing of either marital love or lust,” Rhonwyn said. “At Cythraul my brother and I were the fortress's children. Lately, however, young men newly come into our midst had tried to feel my breasts and kiss me. I beat them with my fists, and the others beat them afterward with rods for their temerity. Was what they attempted lust?”

The nun nodded. “It was. And you felt nothing toward them?”

“Nay,” Rhonwyn replied vehemently. “They were pockmarked lads and nowhere near as skilled as I am with weapons. I think I must respect the man who uses my body and loves me.”

“A wise decision, my child. Now, let me turn the subject to the matter of arithmetic. It is best you have some familiarity with computation and calculation. That way if your husband goes off to war, you will be able to be certain the steward doesn't cheat you. You know your numbers, I am told, so let us now begin.” She held up two fingers on her right hand. “How many?” she asked.

“Two,” Rhonwyn said.

“And now how many?” The nun revealed two fingers on her left hand.

“Two there as well,” Rhonwyn said.

“But how many altogether?” Sister Rhan asked.

Rhonwyn quickly scanned the digits, counting mentally. “Four.”

“That is correct, and that, my child, is called adding.” She reached into a basket by the table where they sat and brought up a device with several rows of beads, which she set on the table. “This is called an abacus, Rhonwyn. Now watch.” She slid two beads from one side of the instrument to the other. “Two and two more equal how many?”

“Four!”

“Take away one bead. How many?”

“Three!”

“Excellent. That second calculation is called subtraction,” Sister Rhan explained.

They quickly discovered that Rhonwyn had a talent for arithmetic. Each day she increased her knowledge until Sister Rhan assured the abbess that her niece would never be cheated by anyone. At least not where arithmetic was concerned. Grammar and logic appealed to the young girl, but while her handwriting improved markedly, Rhonwyn seemed to have no real talent for rhetoric, and she knew it.

“My brother would do well with it,” she told her teacher. “He makes up stories and poems, and puts them to music that he sings in the hall of Cythraul. I think he will be a great bard one day.”

Her time was growing shorter at Mercy Abbey, and her days, it seemed, were busy from dawn to dusk. Her two companions, Elen and Arlais, ended their trial as postulants and became novices. The three girls had never really become close, having different interests, but Rhonwyn was pleased that they were halfway to attaining their heart's desire. Rhonwyn, on the other hand, was suddenly beginning to consider her forthcoming marriage. She would not meet her husband-to-be until just before they married. Such a thing was not unusual, her aunt said.

Now, as well as increasing her education, Rhonwyn was being fitted for her wardrobe. Her father had brought fine materials indeed for his daughter, and Gwynllian could not complain at him for being niggardly in either his choices or the quantity. There were silks and velvets and brocades as well as linen and fine cottons. The fabrics were rich and colorful. Rhonwyn was shocked, however, to learn women did not wear braies beneath their gowns.

“I've worn mine all along since you put me in a gown,” she told her aunt. “What is substituted to cover the bottom?”

“Ladies wear nought beneath their chemises,” Gwynllian replied.

“Nothing?”
The girl's eyes were wide.

“Your skirts will cover all, I assure you, Rhonwyn,” the abbess said. “It is quite acceptable.”

“I don't think it respectable” was the answer.

Gwynllian's lips twitched, but she managed to keep from chuckling. Her niece was more prudish than she would have expected of a girl raised in a fortress of men. Were it not for the child's continuing warlike tendencies, the abbess would have believed her a candidate for the nunnery, and not marriage. But Rhonwyn still rode daily outside the gates of the abbey, galloping along at a breakneck speed that had the porteress almost swooning at Rhonwyn's maneuvers.

On March the twentieth the abbey celebrated the feast of St. Cuthbert, who had been a bishop of Lindisfarne and whose fingernail paring now resided in its bejeweled gold box on the abbey's church altar. It was bruited about that the relic could cure a variety of minor illnesses, but as it was not a large memorial great miracles could not be expected of it. But the pilgrims came nonetheless to touch the gold box and pray to the saint. The abbey coffers grew at a modest but steady pace that day.