Castle of the Heart (12 page)

They stopped for that night at Shrewsbury
Abbey. The next day they rode north, past Oswestry on their left,
heading toward Chester. They rode with the great earthwork on their
left, the dike that had been made centuries before to keep the wild
Welsh tribesmen out of the more peaceful eastern farmlands. This
border, often disputed, was no safe place for women or invalids.
The men-at-arms Guy had brought with him rode close about them
during this final part of the trip, especially after they had
turned due west, onto the road that ran past Afoncaer and then into
the very heart of yet unconquered Wales. They were fortunate and
met no raiding parties but had only to fight the cold and the wind,
and frequent flurries of snow interspersed with sudden, blinding
sunlight.

They arrived at Afoncaer near sunset of the
third day after leaving Wenlock. To Selene it looked huge and
forbidding, a solid, white-washed stone bulk, forcibly impressed
upon the landscape. It was much larger than her father’s castle in
Brittany, and much more strongly built.

Afoncaer lay on a high bluff between a deep
river and a wild, rushing stream that met the river just beneath
the tower keep. So fierce had been the Welsh opposition to Norman
settlement here that the town which had grown up about the castle
proper was enclosed within its stout outer walls for safety’s sake.
But under Guy’s rule there had been a period of relative peace, and
the town had grown steadily until now houses crowded behind the
wall and some even spilled outside it, squeezed between the far
side of the wet moat and the plowed fields that lay beyond the
town.

“We need another wall,” Thomas said, seeing
Selene’s wondering look at the signs of burgeoning growth. “We have
to clear more land for farming so we can feed all these newcomers.
We will use Reynaud to plan it all, once he’s well again.”

The farmland that lay outside the walls was
relatively level, as was the area where the town had been built
just inside the first wall. It was not until they crossed the
drawbridge over the wet moat and rode along the main street of the
town to approach the inner wall which surrounded the castle itself
that the land began to rise. Before this inner wall, there was a
deep, dry moat with a sharply slanted drawbridge over it, and a
strong, easily defended gatehouse. Once inside the bailey, Selene
could see the steep upward rise of the bluff, and the great, square
tower keep that stood on the highest point of Afoncaer. Next to the
keep and connected to it was a large stone building that must be
the great hall. There were other buildings in the bailey, but it
was growing too dark to see very clearly, and Selene was too weary
to look. She would find her way around the castle grounds another
time. She slid off her horse and into Thomas’s arms.

“Welcome home,” he said, planting a kiss on
each of her cheeks before swinging her to her feet. “I hope you and
I will live here long and happily, my love.”

They stood aside, watching in the cold dusk
while Reynaud was lifted out of his litter and carried up the stone
steps into the keep, Meredith and Arianna following close behind
him.

“Come,” Thomas said, pulling Serene along
with him to where Guy was talking with a man who had come out from
the keep to greet him. “Geoffrey, well met.” Thomas let go of
Selene’s hand to embrace the man.

“Sir Thomas! I can call you Sir Thomas at
last!” Geoffrey pounded Thomas on the back. “For a year or so
there, I doubted you would ever consent to knighting.”

“Here is my wife, Selene,” Thomas said,
bringing her forward.

Geoffrey took her hand and bowed over it. He
was shorter than Thomas and Guy, squarely built, with brown hair
and eyes and an honest, open face that stood out clearly in the
light of the flaring torches held by Guy’s servants. Selene’s first
impression of Sir Geoffrey of Tynant was of his squareness and
brownness, and of his open affection tor Guy, whose squire he had
been, and for Thomas, who had been his squire.

“Come inside,” Geoffrey said. “You must be
chilled, my lady.”

The four of them moved up the narrow stone
stairway and into the keep, Geoffrey guiding Selene through a small
fore-building where a guard stood, then along a short, narrow
passage, up a few more steps, and into the great hall. Fires burned
brightly at either end of the long hall, and tables were being set
up for a meal. Selene went at once to the nearest fire, holding out
her cold hands to its warmth.

“You will want to go to your room,” Guy said
to Selene, “and you will want your women to attend you. Where is
Joan?”

“Probably with Reynaud,” Geoffrey replied.
“She was always fond of him. She’ll want to see him comfortably
settled before anyone else is. Yes, Sir Thomas, go look for her,
she’ll want to greet you, too. We will stay here with your lady. My
God, Guy,” Geoffrey went on when Thomas had left them. “What
happened to poor Reynaud? He looks as though you’ve brought him
straight from the battlefield.”

While Guy explained Reynaud’s accident to
Geoffrey, Selene looked about the great hall, noting its pleasing
proportions and the tall, glazed windows that would let in light
during the day. Rich tapestries of many colors hung upon the grey
stone walls, while bright banners were draped from the rafters.
Beautifully carved stone mantels surmounted the two enormous
fireplaces, one at each end of the hall, that gave both light and
heat. There were several finely made wooden chairs sitting upon the
dais, and the high table was laid with a spotless white linen cloth
and lit by wax tapers in ornate silver holders. Herbs were strewn
upon the floor among the fresh rushes. There was little sign of the
usual refuse from previous meals that had always littered the floor
of Sir Valaire’s hall. In place of the stench of rotting food and
more unmentionable filth, Selene breathed in the scent of rue and
lavender and mellow woodruff. The servants who were arranging the
trestle tables looked well dressed and well fed, and surprisingly
clean. Obviously, Afoncaer was a wealthy, efficiently managed
place.

“And there has been no trouble with the Welsh
while I’ve been gone?” Selene heard Guy ask.

“One or two insignificant raids into Powys,”
Geoffrey replied, “before the weather turned bad. Even the Welsh
don’t care much for battle during a blizzard. I’ll give you a full
report tomorrow, and hear all your news, and then the next day I’ll
be off to Tynant. Afoncaer is a fine place, my friend, and I serve
the time I owe to you gladly, but Tynant is home to me. I’ll be
happy to see it again, and to sleep in my own bed.”

“Is there often warfare with the Welsh?”
Selene asked.

“There was in the past, under Baron Lionel,”
Geoffrey told her. “But since Guy has been baron, it has been a
quiet place. Sometimes I wish for a little battle, just for the
excitement. We do have to stay on our guard always. You never know
with the Welsh. You think all is calm and peaceful, and then
suddenly they erupt into revolt, and you never know where it will
be. Now, here is Joan, come to show you to your room.”

Selene followed the sturdy, grey-haired woman
out of the great hall and up a spiral staircase to the third level
of the keep.

‘Thomas chose this room for you before he
went away to marry you,” Joan said, “because he had been told your
eyes are green. I hope you will be content here, my lady.”

It was a richly furnished room, with a large
bed curtained in green wool, and a deep window niche with stone
seats on each side of the window, padded with green cushions. There
was a bearskin rug on the floor, the walls were plastered and
painted in green and gold, and two large braziers gave off welcome
heat. Selene saw that the chests and baskets containing her
personal belongings had been brought in and piled up against one
wall.

“Your serving women are supervising the
unloading of the rest of your things. They will be here shortly,”
Joan said. She stood still a moment, looking at Selene as though
weighing the younger woman’s merit, then added, “I hope you will
make Thomas happy, my lady. I have known him since the day he was
born, and I love him as though he were my own son. I wish you both
joy of your marriage.”

“If you have known him all his life,” Selene
said, “then you must have known his mother, too.”

“Aye,” Joan replied, her pleasant face
closing in. “I was Lady Isabel’s servant until she married Walter
fitz Alan and moved to Tynant. Lord Guy asked that I remain here
and act as his chatelaine. He wasn’t married at that time, and he
needed someone to manage the female part of his household.”

“Then you can tell me about Lady Isabel.”

“No, I cannot,” Joan said firmly, “except
that she was a vain, selfish woman, who never thought of anyone but
herself.”

“Perhaps you misjudged her. Surely she loved
her son.”

“I don’t know whether she did or not,” Joan
said. “My lady, if you’ll take my advice, you won’t mention Lady
Isabel to the folk of Afoncaer. Those who remember her did not love
her.” With that, Joan left her alone.

The woman was wrong, of course. Joan had
misjudged Lady Isabel. Everyone had. Selene knew it, for Lady
Isabel had told her so, during those friendly talks they had
shared. Isabel had warned her that people would say harsh things
about her and that Selene should pay no heed to their words, for
they, poor souls, simply did not understand. Still, it was
disturbing that no one seemed to have a kind word for Thomas’s
mother.

Selene was not left alone for long. Thomas
arrived to throw his arms around her and tell her how much he loved
her.

“I have been to see Reynaud,” Thomas said.
“Meredith has given him an herbal drink to make him sleep, and
Arianna is helping to change his bandages. I cannot help but admire
that girl, Selene. I scarcely noticed her before, but now I see her
working with Meredith and eager to learn all she can, and I am glad
she has come to Afoncaer. She’s a nice young woman, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Selene said, not really paying
attention to his words. She was wondering how to get out of the
room before Thomas could coax her onto the bed and sweep her into
that terrifying state where all she wanted was to come together
with him until she lost her senses in wild, ecstatic lust. Feeling
her heart begin to pound faster at the thought, she pushed him
aside. “Yes, Arianna is a dear, good friend.”

“Then she will be my friend, too,” Thomas
declared, attempting to take his wife into his arms again.

“Oh, Thomas, not now,” she said hastily. “I’m
so tired after that dreadful trip. Couldn’t you be patient with me,
and not insist on doing
that
to me until I’m more rested?
Please?”

“Certainly, my love. I was thoughtless. I’ve
no wish to force you, and we must very soon go down to the feast
Joan has had prepared. Everyone at Afoncaer wants to meet you and
to welcome you to your new home. We’ll make love later. Until then,
I’ll take my pleasure in thinking about you.” He tried to kiss her,
but Selene pulled away from him again.

“No, Thomas, you said you wouldn’t. Please
leave me alone.”

Thomas tried to put aside his aching need for
her, but it was impossible. Selene presented such a tantalizing
puzzle that no matter what he was doing, he could never get her
completely out of his mind. He knew if he insisted, and kept
kissing and touching her, there would come a moment – and it would
not take very long, either – when she would suddenly flare into
uncontrollable desire and grab at him, using him as though his body
were an instrument created solely for her carnal pleasure. When it
was over she would be cool and distant once more and murmur about
someone else taking her place. It was frightening, but it was
wildly exciting, too, and it had been that way since the very first
time they had made love, when such violent passion in a virgin had
surprised and delighted him, and then left him feeling oddly
uneasy. But there could be no doubt that she had been a virgin.

He watched his lovely wife directing the
maidservants when they arrived, overseeing the unpacking of her
belongings and then his, and he thought he had never known a woman
with such mysterious depths, so many secrets to be discovered. It
would take a lifetime, a long, happy unfolding of their innermost
selves to each other. Thomas, not half so experienced with women as
he liked to think himself, looked forward to learning everything
there was to know about Selene.

Arianna’s room was also on the third floor of
the keep, but on the opposite side from the room allotted to Thomas
and Selene. She had asked to be placed next to Reynaud in case he
should need help at night. Meredith, who shared the large lord’s
chamber on the fourth floor with Guy, readily agreed with this
suggestion, and ordered Arianna’s choice of rooms prepared for her
at once.

Reynaud had been bathed and re-bandaged and
fed, and had swallowed a cup of hot herbal brew before falling into
an apparently peaceful sleep. Meredith set a young serving girl to
watch over him, warning the girl to call Arianna or her at once if
Reynaud should waken, and then departed the sickroom for her own
chamber.

Thus, in the interval before the evening meal
began, Arianna was free to unpack her few belongings. Her room was
small and simply furnished, and Arianna was well pleased with it.
It was built into the thickness of the stone wall of the keep, and
had only a single narrow window, now shuttered against the cold,
with one stone seat in the niche. The bed was just big enough for
one person, covered in a lovely shade of blue-green wool, with
matching curtains to draw at night. Meredith had ordered a brazier
for warmth, and promised hot water for a bath would be sent
soon.