Chapter Three
Meg
I opened my eyes to a candle, guttering in a pottery dish on a small wooden table beside the bed on which I lay. It took only half a second for me to register that all was not as it should be.
“Oh, my God!” I reared up from the pillow. A man sat in a chair by the fire, reading a book the size of a coffee table dictionary. He looked up and smiled, and the smile was so disarming I just gaped at him, mouth open, knowing that nothing about him or the room was right, but unable to articulate why it wasn’t.
The room was built on a grand scale. A long table surrounded by chairs sat near a closed door, twenty feet from the foot of the bed. The bed itself was a massive four-poster, with thick, crimson hangings all around. Only one side was open—the side on which I lay. The floor was comprised of wooden slats set tightly together. Rather than polished, it was faded and worn with what could only have been years of use. I took it all in, flicking my eyes from one item to the next, before returning them to the man in the chair.
He shifted and then stood to walk to a bookshelf on the other side of the room. He laid the book flat on top of several others, taking a moment to align them neatly one with another. While his back was turned, I looked around the bed, more panicked than ever because I realized that I was wearing nothing but a nightgown—and a gorgeous one at that, with embroidered lace and puffy sleeves; that my clothes were gone and my hair was braided in a long plait down my back.
By the time he turned back to me and spoke, I’d scooted up the bed until I was sitting upright, the covers pulled to my chin.
“ . . .” he said.
I had no idea what he’d said. Confused because his words were completely unintelligible, even as they tugged at my ear with familiar tones, I didn’t move or saying anything, just stared. He tried again. I shook my head, uncertain.
He stayed relaxed, his hands at his sides and walked toward me, speaking a little louder, as if somehow that would help. I was desperately trying to make sense of what he was saying, but as he got closer, my breath rose in my chest until it choked me. He must have seen the fear on my face because he stopped, about three feet from the bed. I finally found my voice.
“What?” The words came out as little more than a squeak. “Who are you?” I dragged my eyes from his and flashed them around the room again, seeking somewhere to run but not seeing anything but the long distance to the door and the man standing between it and me. He didn’t answer my question but again tried one of his own.
“Beth ydy'ch enw chi?” he said.
“Meg dw i,” I said, then gasped. I’d answered automatically. ‘What is your name?’ he’d said in Welsh. ‘My name is Meg.’
I stilled myself and studied him as he stood, still calm, two paces from me. Had what he’d spoken before been in Welsh that I hadn’t understood, perhaps too fast, and too complicated compared to what I’d learned from Mom? Through my foggy brain, I focused with an effort. Who is he? He still hadn’t told me.
He was a large man in his late thirties, thin but muscled, nearly a foot taller than I. He wore a cream-colored shirt with a dark blue jacket, brown pants, and brown leather boots. He had a long nose and black hair, close in color to Anna’s. Anna! Fear rose in me again and twisted to see if she was on the bed.
“She’s asleep by the fire,” the man said, reading my mind. He followed this statement by more unintelligible words, except for, “You say, ‘Meg’, but you mean, Marged?”
I nodded. Marged was my formal name, though I never used it. Now more afraid for Anna than afraid of him, I swung my legs to the floor and ran to where he pointed. Anna was indeed asleep in a cradle set against the far wall, with large rockers on the bottom to keep a child asleep.
Someone had changed her clothes too. She wore a white nightgown that was a match to mine and was covered by a brown woolen blanket that was incredibly soft to the touch. Though my arms ached to hold her, I was afraid to pick her up in case I needed two hands to fend off the man, and was loathe to wake her needlessly. Instead, I stroked the hair away from her face.
I sat back on my heels, still watching her. As I settled there, my surroundings seeped into my consciousness more clearly: the tapestries on the walls; the handmade chair and table between the bed and the fire; the clothes we wore. All forced me to face the no longer ignorable questions: Where am I? What is this place?
“Who are you?” I asked again in English, and at the man’s look of puzzlement, repeated his words back to him. “Beth ydy'ch enw chi?”
“Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Tywysog o Cymry,” he said.
Both hands flew to my mouth. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Prince of Wales, he’d said.
Every Welsh child ever born had been told stories of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last Prince of Wales, a man who’d died on a cold, snowy day in history, lured away from his companions by the treacherous English. Why was he telling me he was a thirteenth century Prince of Wales? I glanced around the room again. Had he constructed a thirteenth century house to go with his fantasies? Why had he brought Anna and me here?
“You can’t be.” I dropped my hands to my lap as reason reasserted itself in my brain.
“Englisch?” His face suddenly reddened. He took a step towards me but I hurried to forestall him, leaning forward with one hand on the floor and the other held out to stop him.
“No! No!” I said, then switched to Welsh at his fierce expression. “Na! Na! Os gwelwch yn dda!” Please, no!
Llywelyn stopped and I took in a shaky breath, the fear of before filling me more than ever. I knew enough of violent men to see it in him. My heart raced, but he studied me, not raising his hand or making any more threatening gestures, and gradually it slowed. I glanced at Anna, unsure if I should pick her up to keep her safe, or if it would just draw his attention to her and put us both at risk.
I dropped my hand, eased back onto my heels, and let out a steadying breath. Llywelyn took his chair, both of us more composed. My plea had diffused whatever emotion had been about to explode in the room, and for the first time I was glad I’d had Trev to deal with all those years. At times, I’d been able to say the right thing to calm him down, and weeks where I’d managed to tiptoe around him without upsetting him.
Unfortunately, there’d also been those days when Trev hadn’t listened whether or not I’d held silent or begged him to stop, allowing his own inner demons to overcome him without regard to me. Now, with Llywelyn settled, I wanted to ask him more about where I was, but didn’t know how to begin, and was afraid to set him off again. In a way, the fact that he was pretending to be a centuries dead Welsh prince didn’t even matter. He could think he was a purple hippopotamus for all I cared. I just wanted to get out of the room in one piece.
Llywelyn, perhaps trying to be helpful, tried again. “Fran?ais?”
Relief flooded through me. “Oui!” If he refused to speak English and I didn’t know enough Welsh, at least we could communicate in some fashion. It struck me that his fantasy was remarkably consistent, in that the historical Llywelyn would also have spoken French since it was the primary language of the English court in the thirteenth century, as well as the French one.
Llywelyn smiled too. “You may not remember,” he said, now in strangely accented but intelligible (to me) French, “but your chariot ran aground in the marsh below the castle. Moments after I retrieved you from the wreckage, it sank and disappeared.”
“Marsh? Castle?” I said. A befuddled fog rose again to drive away my moment of clarity. “I was driving my car to buy ice cream . . .” I stopped at the look Llywelyn wore on his face—a look that said, ‘your what to buy what?’
“My vehicle,” I amended, hoping that the word existed in medieval French.
Llywelyn stood abruptly. “I won’t question you more tonight. You must be hungry.” He strode to the door, opened it, poked his head out, and waved one hand. Immediately, a man hurried into the doorway and saluted.
“Mau Rhi?” the man said. My lord?
Llywelyn spoke words I couldn’t understand, but I was only listening with half an ear anyway because this time I was staring at the man who’d just appeared. He wore mail armor, the little links catching the light with every shift of his body. Over that, a white tunic adorned by three red lions decorated his chest. He wore no helmet, and like Llywelyn, was clean shaven. He’d clearly bought into—or was humoring—Llywelyn’s delusions.
I crouched next to Anna’s bed, uncertain what to do. It didn’t look like the door would get me very far, not with a guard outside it. I checked the room for windows. It had two, both covered with wooden shutters, though a light flashed every now and then through the chinks between the wood and the frame. In watching for it, I missed the rest of the men’s conversation. Llywelyn shut the door. He returned to his chair, but not before gesturing to me to sit again on the bed.
“You must be tired,” he said, back to French. “You can eat and it will make you feel better.”
I couldn’t bear to just obey him. Yet, I looked at my baby Anna, still sleeping, and didn’t dare disobey. She lay quiet and desperately beautiful, a hostage to my good behavior. Not knowing what else to do, I stood and walked past him to the bed.
I sat on its edge, more awkward than ever. Neither of us spoke. I smoothed my nightgown over my thighs. Even as I shivered, my palms sweated. I reached behind me to tug at one of the blankets, wanting more warmth. Llywelyn leaned forward to pull the blanket over my shoulders, before settling back in his chair with a nod.
“I’ll stoke the fire again before we sleep,” he said.
A sickening lump formed in my stomach and it wasn’t because I was hungry. A rushing in my ears threatened to overwhelm me and all I could think was oh my God; oh my God; oh my God. My worst fears were abruptly out in the open. I could only gape at Llywelyn without trying to contradict him, as if my mind had gotten hung up in overdrive and was revving with the clutch out and nowhere to go. He seemed so utterly unconcerned, sitting as he was with one ankle resting on the opposite knee, his hands folded across his chest. What was I going to do?
The soldier from the hallway returned with food and drink. I stared at him blindly while Llywelyn indicated that he should set the tray on the table beside the bed. Llywelyn moved the candle to the mantelpiece above the fire to give him room.
When the man left, Llywelyn gestured to the food. “It isn’t much, but should tide us over until morning.”
I nodded, stone-faced, the lump in my throat preventing me from speaking. Llywelyn poured two glasses of wine from the carafe and handed one to me before taking the second for himself. I didn’t want to drink it, not only because I was afraid to take anything from him, but because I normally didn’t drink wine at all. It had never seemed like a good idea with Trev around—either because it would tempt him or because I didn’t dare lose control over myself. I also wouldn’t be twenty-one until April.
I took the cup but simply sat on the bed with it in my hand. Llywelyn raised his eyebrows at me then lifted the cup as if in a toast and took a sip. “There’s no poison in it, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
Under his curious gaze, I didn’t dare refuse it any longer, even as I cursed myself for being so passive. I took a sip. It tasted bitter on my tongue—far more than the cheap, sweet wine Mom usually drank. I set the cup on the table and Llywelyn handed me a hunk of cheese and bread he’d cut with his belt knife. I drank and ate while Llywelyn watched. He seemed so believable in his stillness. He took the moment when my mouth was full of food to begin asking the questions he’d said he wouldn’t earlier.
“Who’s Anna’s father?”
I took a swig of wine and swallowed hard. “He’s dead,” I said, glad that in this at least I could tell the truth.
Llywelyn nodded, accepting my words at face value. “And your father?”
“He’s dead too,” I said.
Llywelyn made a ‘tsk’ noise through his teeth. “I was asking their names.” I didn’t respond and he began work on cutting up a small apple. “My man included the apple only after I told him that you possessed all your teeth.”
His words were so incongruous to the fear I’d been feeling, I choked on the next sip and barely stopped myself from spewing the wine across the floor. I coughed and then found hysterical laughter bubbling up in my throat. I could barely see him through streaming eyes as I fought it back. His mouth quirked as he started to smile too, though I didn’t think he knew he’d made a joke at first—it probably hadn’t been a joke to him. Then he laughed outright.
I took his half-second of inattention to lunge for the knife.
I rammed my shoulder into his arm and overbalanced him, getting my hand on his knife as he released it in surprise. I had intended to take the knife from him and hold him off with it, but instead, he spun with me, grabbing my arm as he went down and pulling me off balance too. I fell sideways, stunning myself by landing hard on my left hip and then clonking my head on the floor, my legs tangled up in my long nightgown. Llywelyn recovered more quickly than I and threw himself on top of me, pinioning each of my wrists to the floor with his big hands, the knife skittering away from me into a corner of the room.
He loomed over me, his nose only inches from mine and the full weight of his body resting on my torso, holding me down. “Who sent you?” he hissed into my face. “What devil’s bargain did you make?”
I stared up at him, my vision blurring from the pain in my head as the ache from before roared back and darkened my vision around the edges. I knew what was going to happen next because it had happened once with Trev. Only once, and then I’d taken Anna and left.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper. “I just want to go home. My mother will be worried about me. I wasn’t going to use the knife. I wouldn’t even know how.”
Llywelyn studied me, the urgency in his eyes lessening, though he didn’t loosen his grip on me at all. Tears welled in my eyes and trickled down the side of my face to get lost in my hair, much of which had come loose from its braid. Though his eyes never left mine, he eased away, got to his feet, and retrieved the knife. He straightened his chair and sat. When his weight came off me, I rolled onto my side, curling my knees up to my chest and pressing my face into the cool of the floor.
Llywelyn sighed. “Did you think I would force you?”
“Yes.”
I lifted my head to look into his face. He rubbed his eyes with his fingers and then rested his elbows on his knees and put his chin in his hands. “I’m too old for this,” he said.
Then he stood suddenly and took one stride toward me. I almost managed to hold in a shriek before he crouched beside me, got one arm under my neck and the other under my knees, and hoisted me in his arms. He brought me over to the bed and dropped me, unceremoniously, onto the spot I’d been before.
“I’ve never taken a woman against her will and I don’t intend to start with you.” He grunted as he straightened the pillow under my head. Then he grabbed a blanket from the foot of the bed and threw it over me. I curled up, cradling my head in my hands. I’d been so sure he would hurt me and that I wouldn’t be able to stop him. I was having a hard time understanding he was leaving me unharmed.
“Where’s your mother?” Llywelyn demanded, his feet spread wide, hands on his hips.
“R-r-r-radnor,” I said.
Llywelyn’s eyes narrowed. “That’s days away. How did you plan on getting there?”
“I . . .” I couldn’t continue, at a loss for an answer.
Llywelyn tipped his head to one side and relaxed his arms, letting them fall loose at his sides. “Where did you come from, Marged?”
It seemed like he wasn’t asking for the town I lived in, or how far I’d driven today, but something else entirely; something to which I had no more answers than he did.
I shook my head. “Nothing is clear to me right now.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “How’s your head? That’s twice you’ve cracked it today.”
I put my hand to my forehead where it ached, feeling a large bump where my hairline started. “It hurts to touch, and I have a bit of a headache.”
“I asked also for willow bark to mix with your wine,” he said. He took a twist of cloth that I hadn’t noticed on the tray, and dumped it into my cup. It didn’t seem possible, but it appeared as if he thought it was possible to return to a time before I attacked him, to normal interaction.
He sat on the edge of the bed, his weight making it sag, and I rolled onto my back to counter it. Once again, Llywelyn hooked his arm around my neck but this time he lifted me so I could sip the wine. I looked into the deep red liquid with little bits of bark floating in it, not liking the idea of drinking something so unfamiliar. As before, however, his will was impossible to defy and I didn’t feel I had choice.
“You must sleep,” he said. “We’ll talk more in the morning. I swear to you that I will not hurt you.”
I gazed up at him. Somehow, I believed him. “I’m sorry about the knife.”
Llywelyn gave me a hard look but I was too tired to think about what he might mean by it. Mom and Elisa definitely wouldn’t have approved of him. Elisa had already given me a lecture about bringing a guy home before I went out with him. What would she call this? A date? Not exactly. But my head hurt so badly I couldn’t keep my eyes open and I couldn’t fight him anymore. Even Elisa would have to agree that whatever Llywelyn was, he was unexpected.
He picked up the blanket that I’d dropped to the floor when I’d gone for the knife and tucked it around me.
“Sleep,” he said.
I closed my eyes. And then I opened them again when I realized there was no way I was going to be able to sleep with Anna on the other side of the room. I sat up. Llywelyn watched me, his hands on his hips. Out of bed again, I hurried to where Anna lay and crouched to grasp the rockers. With gentle tugs, I got her bed moving across the floor.
“Marged,” Llywelyn said. “Don’t do that.” His voice held a definite exasperation this time, but still, he nudged me aside and bent to the cradle. With a slight exhale of air, he lifted the trundle bed, his arms under the rockers, and carried it across the room.
“Please put it there,” I said, pointing to a spot on the floor beside the bed. He set the cradle down and I climbed back under the covers. I reached out and found that the tips of my fingers could just touch the rail of her bed. I rocked her gently. Anna sighed and rolled onto her side. I looked up at Llywelyn. “Thank you.”
He canted his head in acknowledgement, and despite my fears and uncertainties, I finally closed my eyes and slept.
* * * * *
“I must speak with the Prince!”
I swam awake, fighting through a strange fog of half-remembered dreams and conversation from the night before. Someone was pounding on the bedroom door and shouting in a confused mix of French and Welsh. Or, at least confused to me since I couldn’t make out every word. The intent, however, was clear.
Abruptly, the pounding stopped and a stern voice cut through the commotion on the other side of the door. “The Prince is . . . busy.”
“Stand aside! I must speak with him! Wake him for me!”
“My brother, Dafydd, is a bit intemperate.”
My breath froze in my lungs. I turned my head and found myself looking into Llywelyn’s face. He was lying on the bed—and admittedly it was a big bed because he was at least three feet away—with his elbow on his pillow and his head propped up on one hand, looking at me, clear amusement in his eyes. He had an almost impish expression on his face that told me he was enjoying himself enormously.
“What’s happening?”
“It seems my brother seeks an audience with me. I suppose I ought to let him in before he wakes Anna.”
Llywelyn’s chest was bare and as he threw back the cover, I sure hope he has something on his lower half! had barely passed through my head before he straightened, wearing—
Oh dear God! Absolutely nothing!
I must have squeaked because Llywelyn shot me a look of amused condescension. He reached for his breeches, which he’d left at the foot of the bed, and pulled them on. Didn’t medieval people wear underwear? And if they didn’t, did he have to make this whole thing so authentic?
Stirrings and bangs came from the other side of the curtain and then Llywelyn appeared on my side of the bed, fully dressed, his finger to his lips. He tugged the curtain closed so it hid me. He left a little gap, however and through it, I could see Llywelyn stride to the door and open it to reveal an agitated man, his hair flattened to his head and his helmet under his arm. Despite that, he was extraordinarily handsome, younger than Llywelyn, shorter and not as lean.
“My lord,” the man said. “Brother.” He bowed his head.
“What is it, Dafydd?” Llywelyn said, in French. “I was sleeping.”
The man dismissed his words with a shake of his head. “I’ve already breakfasted.”
“Good for you,” Llywelyn said, his voice dry.
“Not all of us are lay-a-beds,” Dafydd said. This was so patently unfair I wondered that Llywelyn didn’t correct his brother, but he didn’t, just let the silence drag out until Dafydd filled it with his news. “Clare is on the move. He knows that Gruffydd ap Rhys has returned from Ireland with your support, and that you have plans to give Senghenydd to him, along with Castell Morgraig. Clare has begun work on a new castle at Caerphilly.”
“Damn the man!” Llywelyn said. “That is my land. He knows this will bring me out. Doesn’t he care?”
“Perhaps that’s his plan. Perhaps he intends to thwart you with open battle or with treachery.”
Llywelyn eyed his brother. “Thank you, Dafydd, for your news. I submit it could have waited until I was awake.”
“Yes, brother,” he said, “but then I wouldn’t have had the chance to glimpse your lovely new lady.” His eyes met mine through the gap in the curtain and he smirked.
“She’s mine, Dafydd. Do not forget it.”
“Yes, brother.” Dafydd stepped back. Llywelyn shot a glance at me and then followed Dafydd into the hall, pulling the door closed behind him.
I lay there, feeling alternately horrified, sick, extremely vulnerable, and then angry. Why was this happening to me? Who were these lunatics and what were they going to do next?
The door opened and Llywelyn stalked back into the room, headed towards me. He jerked open the curtain and leaned forward, his fists resting on the bed on either side of my hips, his face only inches from mine, just as we’d been the night before. This time, while he looked just as fierce, his eyes had a glint of something else—amusement again perhaps, or mischief.
“I must meet with my counselors,” he said. “A maid will come with clothes for you and Anna. I journey south within the next two days. You must prepare, for I intend to take you with me.”
“South?” I asked, feeling stupid again. “Where?”
Llywelyn didn’t answer. Instead, he threaded his fingers through the hair at the back of my head, lifted me up and kissed me, hard, before letting me fall back onto the bed. “Remember what I told my brother.”
Speechless again, all I could do was watch him go.