A Moment in Time (14 page)

"Aye! Aye! And again aye!" he said wearily.

"I will miss you all," Wynne said tearily.

"It is Gwernach that is your first love," Dewi said intuitively. "As a final gift from me, I am sending Einion with you to keep you safe from all harm."

"But Einion must stay with you to protect you and Mair!" Wynne protested, growing teary. "Father chose him to watch over the children."

"He goes with you, sister," the lord of Gwernach said firmly. "I am the lord here now and I will look after Mair. My brother of Powys can have no objection, can you, Madoc?"

"Nay, Dewi ap Owain, I have no objection to this gift you would make your sister, but do you not think me capable of defending my own?"

"As I am defending
my
own," the boy replied, much to the prince's amusement.

Madoc bowed elegantly, acknowledging that the subject was closed. Taking Wynne by the hand, he led her outside to where Nesta and Rhys already awaited them. He lifted her onto her horse, a gentle white mare he had given her.

A brief panicked look entered Wynne's eyes for a moment, but Enid, coming to her side, patted her hand comfortingly. "We will be fine, my child. Write to me when you can, and remember that I got on quite well in the world before you entered it! I imagine I will continue to survive quite nicely even though I be here and you there."

Her grandmother's pithy remarks were enough to ease Wynne's tension and she laughed. "It is an adventure, Grandmother, isn't it?"

"Aye, my child, and every young girl should have some adventures before she settles down to the dull business of being a wife and a mother! It is the natural order of life for women, having been given the gift of life bearing, to organize their homes and bear children; but such a life is not always the most interesting."

Father Drew stepped forward to bless them and to bless their journey. As he made the sign of the cross over them, Wynne felt the tears she was unable to contain finally slipping down her cheeks. It wasn't that she was unhappy. She wasn't. But she was sad to be leaving Gwernach. As the horses moved away, the sight of her grandmother and little Mair etched itself in her heart, even as her brother, with a cursory wave in her direction, quickly disappeared around the corner of the manor house, intent on his own business. Suddenly the sadness drained from her.

"Dewi is certainly eager to be rid of me," she noted with a watery chuckle.

"He is anxious to be his own man," Rhys said wisely. "You cannot fault the lad, Wynne. With good further guidance he will do well for Gwernach. We'll have to put our minds to finding him a good wife in a few years, but not my cousin Gwenda of Llyn. I could see he took a right dislike to the wench, although her mother entertains high hopes, I doubt not."

"She reminds him of Caitlin in her manner," Wynne replied. "Dewi has never liked Caitlin."

"We know many lovely young girls who would make your brother a perfect wife," Nesta said.

Madoc laughed at them. "Give the boy time," he counseled. "He is only just free of his eldest sister, and he needs to first grow up a bit
and
then to sow himself a few wild oats."

"Ahh, wild oats!" Rhys grinned appreciatively.

"And have you sown many, my dear lord?" Nesta asked sweetly, her lovely face deceptively bland, her gold eyes twinkling devilishly.

"Enough, I believe, that you will not find me wanting in our bedchamber," he responded boldly.

Nesta, taken by surprise at his answer, blushed prettily.

Rhys chortled, satisfied. "You've bewitched me, my fair Nesta," he admitted, "but always remember that I am the man!"

"I shall never again forget," Nesta replied promptly, but even as she spoke, Wynne felt she meant something far different than her words implied to her besotted lover.

The distance between Gwernach and Madoc's home at Raven's Rock Castle was one of several long days' duration. They were not always fortunate enough to find shelter in a convent or a monastery guest house; or with some noble family, or well-to-do manor farmer willing to put up with so many mouths to feed. Two nights they camped out in the forest, keeping fires going to frighten away the wild animals and a strong watch posted to keep away the violent robbers that preyed upon careless travelers and were far more savage than the beasts of the wood.

Rhys escorted them but part of their way, for he could not be away from St. Bride's too long a time lest some unwise fool challenge his authority. Early one morning a large party of armed men approached them shouting the prince's name. Madoc rode forth to meet them, smiling and waving a greeting.

"I will leave you now, lady mine," Rhys told Nesta, "and return with my men to St. Bride's that I may make it perfect for your coming."

"The time away from you will seem an eternity," Nesta told him. Tears sprang into her golden eyes as she leaned from her mare to catch his hand and press it to her cheek.

Wynne was forced to turn away, for the look on Rhys's face was heartbreaking. It was so obvious he could hardly bear to leave Nesta, nor she him. To love like that, Wynne thought, and on such short acquaintance. It was as if they had known each other their entire lives instead of just having met so short a time ago. Why could she not feel at least half of the love for Madoc that Nesta felt for her betrothed husband? Nesta's feelings for Rhys of St. Bride's were far different than what she felt for Madoc. Wynne was wise enough to recognize it. Not that her passion for the prince was an unpleasant thing, but Wynne instinctively felt that there should be more. She remembered her parents behaving as Nesta and Rhys behaved. Would these other feelings eventually come?

She was startled from her reverie by Rhys's voice saying, "I bid you fond farewell, Wynne of Gwernach."

"And I you, my lord. May God and St. David keep you safe until we meet again," she replied. He smiled at her, and Wynne realized that he was a handsome man. "I thank you for giving my two sisters such fine husbands, my lord."

Rhys's laughter rumbled in his barrel chest. "I think we have both done well by that transaction, Wynne. Do you not think so also?"

"Aye," she admitted, beginning to laugh, realizing that he had been as eager to get his less than admirable relatives wives as she had been to get the shrewish Caitlin and the foolish Dilys husbands.

"And we shall rarely, if ever, have to see them." Rhys chuckled.

"If that be the case, my lord, then I shall indeed owe you a favor," Wynne told him, giggling.

"You are both dreadful!" Nesta scolded them, but her own mouth was turned up in a smile.

Madoc rejoined them and offered his hand to Rhys in parting. "Come two days before the Solstice, brother, to claim your bride. She will be awaiting you. You had best bring a large troop of men with you, for her dowry and all her possessions are great. Be warned, Rhys. This woman never disposes of anything that comes into her grasp. She still has clothing from her childhood."

"Which I have carefully stored away, and which will serve nicely for my daughters," Nesta said primly. "I do not believe in waste, Madoc. I have not your resources."

"Why, wench, you will carry away half of Raven's Rock, I vow!" he teased her.

"I deserve it all for putting up with you these many years," she teased back spiritedly.

Rhys grinned at Madoc and shook his hand. He saluted Wynne politely. Then leaning forward, he kissed Nesta heartily, leaving her rosy and breathless. "Farewell, lady mine. Magic the time between us away, my love. Until we meet again!" He turned his horse and called out a command to his men to follow.

Madoc's party sat on their horses a minute watching Rhys and his men go, and then, at Madoc's signal, they moved off in the opposite direction. Wynne was silent for most of the rest of their journey. Having never been more than a mile or two from Gwernach, she was awed and fascinated by their travels. There was such a variety of countryside. They moved through dark forests, across wide, meadowlike plains edged in marshes, over hills both gentle and steep; and always the mountains rose before them, beckoning them onward.

Madoc's castle of Raven's Rock, or Bran's Craig as it was called in the Celtic Welsh tongue, was located in the Black Mountains of Powys. When she first saw it, Wynne thought she must be dreaming, for never before had she seen anything like that which arose before her now. It seemed to spring from the mountainside itself. Indeed, it appeared to be not just a part of the mountain, but one with it.

"It is a magical place," she said softly upon her first sight of her new home.

"Is it?" he said.

"Do not toy with me, my lord," Wynne said sharply. "Your family's power is said to stem from Merlin himself. Did not Merlin help Arthwr to fashion Camelot? How else could you carve a castle from the mountainside?"

"Raven's Rock merely looks as if it is one and the same with the mountain. That is because it is built of the same granite the mountains are made of, dearling. My ancestor thought it a good camouflage."

"I admit to being ignorant where castles are concerned, but I have never seen a place such as Raven's Rock," Wynne said. "It looks almost foreign in its design."

"It is," he told her. "It is a mixture of styles not yet common to this island of Britain upon which we live. My ancestor brought back his ideas from his travels. He spent many years traveling the world. The original part of the building is a round tower."

"There are four towers," Wynne noted.

"Look closely," he told her as their horses carefully traversed the steep trail across the gorge from Raven's Rock. "Two towers are round and two square. It is the tower on the west that is the original one."

"Where are your gardens?" she asked.

"The open areas that are walled upon the edges of the cliffs are called
terraces
, Wynne. There my gardens are set, and they are most fair to the eye. I have already sent word ahead that my gardener open a place for you to plant your herb cuttings. That way they will settle themselves into the earth before the winter comes. It will be good to have a woman's touch in the gardens again. They have not been quite the same since my mother's death. The earth responds well to a woman's touch. My sister Nesta could not bring herself to plant in our mother's garden. She said it made her sad."

"Women understand the earth, my lord, for the earth gives life even as women are capable of giving life."

The trail that they followed wound down into the gorge which was traversed by a swiftly flowing small river. A sturdily built stone bridge spanned the river. They crossed it to the other side, where they followed another narrow road up the mountain to the castle gates. Raven's Rock had no moat. It needed none, for the road to it was but one horse in width. It was truly impregnable to anyone foolish enough to seek to attack it.

"It appears a mighty and terrifying place approaching it for the first time," Madoc said to Wynne, "but once you have passed beneath the portcullis, you will find yourself in a gracious and beautiful world."

"It appears so black and so fierce as we grow nearer," Wynne told him, gazing up at the dark soaring towers and sharply etched parapets of the castle.

"To frighten our enemies," he answered.

"Do you have enemies, my lord?"

"Few men are without them, I fear, my dearling," he said, but no more.

A loud cry arose from the men at arms upon the walls of Raven's Rock. They shouted the prince's name over and over again by way of greeting him.
"Madoc! Madoc! Madoc!"

"Do they love him so?" Wynne inquired of Nesta.

"Aye, they do," Nesta said. "There is something about the princes of Wenwynwyn that binds men in loyalty to them. They say Madoc's father, Prince Gwalchmal, was very much like him."

"What happened to Madoc's father?" Wynne asked. "I know so little of this family into which I am expected to wed."

"No one really knows," Nesta said. "Prince Gwalchmal was found at the foot of the mountain one early spring day, his neck broken. It is believed he fell, although no one knows how or why it happened. He was a man in his prime, which made it all the more confusing. Madoc was seven at the time. Our mother, Gwenhwyvar, remarried with a haste that some might have thought indecent; but she felt she needed to protect Madoc. He was a child incapable of protecting himself. She took for her second husband the twin of her first husband, Cynbel of Cai. Madoc's father had died in March. Gwenhwyvar wed Cynbel in May of that same year. Our brother, Brys, was born the following February."