Castle of Dreams (37 page)

“There will be none. I am not Father Herbert.
The most important matter to concern me just now,” Reynaud went on,
“is that Sir Walter and his wife are plotting to usurp the power of
one of King Henry’s barons with the Earl of Chester’s help. That we
cannot allow, nor would I see one hair on young Thomas’s head
harmed if I could prevent it by any means whatsoever. I will make
no objection to help from this Branwen of yours.”

“That’s more like it,” Brian breathed,
watching Guy clasp Reynaud’s hand in silent thanks.

Reynaud spent the rest of the day writing
letters. The first one went to King Henry, as Guy had ordered. The
second letter was dispatched to Guy’s seneschal at Adderbury,
requesting more men and supplies as soon as possible. The third
letter was sent to Walter with his returning messenger.

“I have written,” Reynaud told Guy and Brian,
“that I am preparing to leave on the morrow to discuss with Sir
Walter in person the arrangements for Thomas’s safety and the
disposition of Afoncaer.”

“You make it sound as if Guy is just going to
hand the castle over to Walter without a fight,” Brian
grumbled.

“My chief concern is to keep Thomas alive and
well,” Guy replied. “So long as Walter believes he might get
Afoncaer without a costly battle, I think Thomas will be safe.
Whatever you do, Reynaud, give Walter no reason to break off
negotiations. You can always say you need to ride back here to
consult with me, and thus gain extra time.”

“I understand, my lord. I will also insist
upon seeing Thomas, to ascertain that he is being well treated, and
I will send regular reports to you.”

Reynaud left the next noonday, well guarded
by as many men as Guy could spare.

“The trouble is,” Guy said to Brian as they
stood at the main gate watching Reynaud ride away, “Walter knows
all too well how few men I have here. And he knows the weak points
in Afoncaer’s defenses.”

“If Reynaud can talk and negotiate and delay
until the new men from Adderbury can arrive, we’ll be in better
condition, my friend.” Brian wrapped his dark grey cloak more
closely about his shoulders for protection against the early autumn
drizzle. “I’ll go to the cave now. Branwen and Meredith must be
told what has happened.”

When Brian returned later that day, Meredith
and Branwen both were with him.

“We will stay here until Thomas is safely
returned,” Meredith said. Studying the signs of strain in Guy’s
face and seeing the pain in his eyes, she knew she had been right
to come, and when his somber expression relaxed into a smile as he
told her she was welcome, she felt she had come home.

They found Joan in the women’s quarters, and
to Meredith’s surprise Joan and Branwen were soon on the most
cordial terms. A little later, after the evening meal, while
Branwen stood talking quietly with Brian at one side of the great
hall, Joan cast an approving eye at the couple.

“Your aunt is a sensible woman,” Joan said.
“I like her, and I see that Sir Brian does, too. It’s a good thing.
I think he is a lonely soul. And speaking of lonely, will you take
this pitcher of ale to Sir Guy? He has gone to his chamber in the
keep. I’ll be glad when the new great hall is built and we are all
close together again. It will be very inconvenient running back and
forth across the bailey this winter in the cold and wet.”

It was neither cold nor wet on this September
evening. The rain had stopped and it was so warm that Meredith did
not need a shawl. She met Geoffrey just coming out of the lord’s
chamber. He let her in, then went bounding down the steps two at a
time, leaving her alone with Guy. Meredith closed the door softly
and put the ale on the table.

Guy stood by the fireplace. It was one of the
new kind, built into the stone wall and with a chimney to carry off
the smoke instead of an old-fashioned firepit in the center of the
room. Meredith thought he was unaware of her presence, so intent
was he on the dancing flames before him. She looked around the
room.

The last time she had stood in this place it
had been a stone shell with a temporary roof. Now the keep was all
but completed. The fireproof lead roof was in place, and Guy’s room
had been made into a comfortable refuge for the master of the
castle. On the east and west walls the long, narrow double windows,
as yet unglazed, were shuttered against the night. This high up in
the keep, where the arrows of besiegers were less likely to find
their mark, windows could be a little larger than on lower floors.
They were built into alcoves, with cushioned stone ledges forming
seats on either side of each pair of windows.

A rug of intricate design was hung like a
tapestry on one plastered and deep blue-painted wall. The brilliant
colors of the rug warmed the room, as did the similar hues of its
near mate on the floor. Meredith had seen both rugs before, when
Lady Isabel was planning the decoration of the new living quarters.
Guy had brought the carpets back from faraway Byzantium, along with
the three tiny, ornately inlaid tables set about the room.

The bed, of heavy carved wood with red wool
curtains around it to keep out drafts, occupied most of the floor
space. The same man who had made the bed had also carved the big
wooden arm chair by the fire, and Joan had made and stuffed the
blue silk cushion that padded its seat.

“Do you like it?” Guy turned from his
contemplation of the burning logs to watch her.

“Yes. It’s beautiful.” She removed her
attention from the room to its occupant. She recognized in his face
the sadness that had been there the first time she had ever seen
him. To sadness was now added worry, fear, even despair. She put
out both hands and he took them.

“This waiting must be driving you mad,” she
said. “I wish I could help in some way.”

“You help by being here,” he told her. “I am
glad you came with Branwen. But you are right, it is hard to wait.
I am trained to action, to warfare. My every instinct says attack,
yet I can do nothing, for Thomas’s sake. I must stay here quietly
until Reynaud comes back.” He dropped her hands, turning again to
the fire, and Meredith saw his jaw clench.

She had her instincts, too, and now she
followed them. She went to him and put her arms around his waist
and laid her head on his shoulder. He hesitated only an instant
before his arms encircled her. She felt his lips brush across her
forehead.

This was where she belonged, beside him, in
his arms. She knew he needed her. She could not heal his present
pain, but she could alleviate it a little, comfort him, give him
ease with her presence and with her love, of which she dared not
speak to him, but she would freely give that, too.

She lifted her face and saw he was still
staring into the fire as if he could read the future in the flames.
She reached upward and kissed the bottom of his chin and then
stretched a little higher and kissed the lower part of his
cheek.

He made a small sound, part gasp, part
chuckle, and tightened his arms. She tried again, this time
reaching the corner of his mouth. She saw his blue eyes gleaming as
he looked hard at her, and then his mouth descended. She loved him
so well, so completely, that she could hold nothing back from him.
She welcomed his kiss, returning it with eager warmth.

“Meredith.” His voice was a soft sigh in her
ear as his lips tenderly caressed her throat and his strong, square
hands pushed off her linen headdress. When she caught at the cloth,
he protested. “Let me look at your hair. How it shines in the
firelight, like dark copper. It is too beautiful to cover.”

Slowly, very slowly, she raised her hands,
and unfastened the two thick braids she wore wound about her head,
and then, keeping her eyes fixed on his all the time, she unbraided
them both, combing through the heavy waves with her fingers until
her hair hung loose to her waist, a soft curtain of molten
fire.

“Now you may look at it, my lord. And touch
it if you wish.”

He caught her hard against him, his hands
winding through the sweet-scented tresses, catching great handfuls
and letting them stream through his fingers, pulling them over her
shoulders and around her throat, then letting them go to take her
face between his hands while he kissed her again and again as
though he was starving for her lips.

“Leave me. You must go. Go now.” He groaned,
even as he pulled her nearer, covering her face with kisses.
“Please, Meredith, go.”

“No, Guy.” She said his name to him for the
first time without title, for none was needed here. For this brief
night he was hers alone and they were equals, Guy and Meredith, man
and woman. “I will stay here tonight. With you.”

“I don’t want to harm you, or bring you
shame.”

“You can do neither. You are too good and too
kind.” She saw his struggle. He tried to push her away, and yet he
bent toward her, seeking one more kiss, and then another. She slid
her arms around his neck, locked her hands behind his head, and
smiled at him. “I will stay,” she said again, and put her mouth on
his, opening her lips, inviting him.

He made one more protest.

“Meredith, no,” he moaned, his lips against
hers, and then he gave in to the warmth and the tender passion now
welling up in them both.

She was crushed against him; she could hardly
breathe; his arms were like a vise and his mouth was hot and sweet
on hers. He kissed her face, her ears, her hair, her throat, and
she cried out in wonder at her body’s answer to the marvelous
things he was doing with his hands. She felt his harder, more
thrusting reaction to her, and gloried in the realization that she
could do that to him, make him need her with so little effort, and
make him so happy with her eager response. That he was happy she
could tell by the look on his face. He was totally, completely
concentrated on her. He had forgotten everything that troubled him,
and Meredith, bedazzled by his tender caresses and his constant
kisses, was soon in a condition remarkably similar to his.

When he had lured her into a rapturous,
trembling state of boneless limbs and aching desire, he swept her
into his arms and carried her to his bed. He laid her down, and
somehow, she wasn’t sure how, because she could not have been much
help to him with her fingers so clumsy and all that stopping to
stroke and caress and kiss and look, but somehow he got her clothes
off and then his own, and she was lying on herb-scented linen
sheets, and he was above her, golden-haired and strong, his body
gleaming with gold reflections from the firelight. She sensed the
whole firm, warm length of him against her body, and it was like
the joining of two long-parted halves, at last made one and whole.
She had been told there would be pain the first time, but it was a
minor thing compared to everything else she was feeling, and it
only lasted an instant and was soon forgotten in the flood of new
sensations she was experiencing. Guy was her heart, her life’s
blood, her very breath, and now he was part of her, filling her,
completing her, and she knew, for he told her in murmured
half-phrases, and showed her by his gentleness with her, and then
at last proved in the sudden, driving urgency of his passion, that
she completed and filled him in the same way. And there was more,
there was glory beyond all imagining, there was brilliant,
ecstatic, rapturous fire, bursting over her, over them both, and
she answered her love’s exultant cry with her own, and knew they
were one in this radiant wonder, too. Forged together by alchemical
magic they clung, two golden, fire-touched creatures, still one
body, one being, and she raised her love-bruised lips for a final
kiss in that blissful state before they returned to their mortal
forms and were forced to separate.

They had no need for words. They lay in each
other’s arms, separate but still together in heart and spirit, and
her head was on his chest, over his heart, his hands smoothing her
hair.

“How lovely you are,” he whispered. She felt
his mouth brush the top of her head. “You smell of lavender.”

She ran her fingers through the golden hair
on his chest, and began nibbling at him. She heard his contented
chuckle. Then he tensed, and she knew he had come back to the world
and all the problems he faced. She thought he would speak of
Thomas, but his next words showed her he was still deeply concerned
for her.

“Ah, Meredith,” he said, “I did not mean this
to happen. I would have stopped, you know that, but I needed you.
How I needed you, and now—”

“Hush.” She silenced his concern with her
lips. “Nothing was done to me against my will. It was I who urged
you. And now I am very happy.” She was. She had no regrets at
all.

“I would not bring shame to you.” When she
tried to stop him in the same way again, with her lips, he took her
by the shoulders and held her, looking up at her while he spoke
with great seriousness. “This is an evil time, Meredith, until we
bring Thomas home. If I get you with child, and then I am killed
fighting Walter, there will be no one to care for you. No, don’t
try to turn away, my sweet, listen to me. We cannot continue this
way.”

She tore herself out of his restraining hands
and flung herself upon his chest, clinging to him,

“Nothing must happen to you,” she cried.
“Nothing. I couldn’t bear it.”

“When a man rides into battle there is always
that possibility,” he said gravely. “I live with that knowledge,
and had you grown up in some lord’s household, or in a village
where men and boys are called upon to serve their master during
wartime, you would not have to be told this.”

“I hate Walter fitz Alan,” she declared. “He
has Thomas, and now he would take your life if he could.”

“I will do my best to prevent that,” Guy
said, smiling wryly, “but you and I must agree not to lie together
again. I once promised Rhys to keep you safe.”