Border Bride

Enid nodded as she worried down a bite of her supper. Though she’d eaten nothing since a dawn bite of bread and cheese, she felt no great appetite. “Con’s mother was a distant kinswoman of my father. She died when the boy was very young, and nobody knew much about his father. Con used to coax the oxen for us until he got big enough to hire out as a soldier.”

He had been the only other youngster around her father’s prosperous maenol in the Vale of Conwy, for Enid’s two brothers were several years their senior. Since neither of the children had mothers to keep a sharp eye on them, they’d run wild as a pair of fallow deer yearlings.

In spite of herself, Enid found her gaze straying to Con’s animated features as he spoke with Father Thomas, watching with jealous interest for some reminder of the winsome boy she’d once loved so unwisely.

Sudden as a kingfisher, he glanced up and caught her eyes upon him. Though she scolded herself for her foolishness, Enid felt a scorching blush nettle her cheeks. She prayed the fire’s swiftly shifting shadows would mask it. The last thing she wanted was for Con ap Ifan to entertain a ridiculous notion she still harbored a fancy for him.

On second thought, there was one thing she wanted even less.

Con swilled another great mouthful of his cider and nodded in pretended interest at some long-winded tale of Father Thomas’s. At the same time he tried to fathom the queer sense of dissatisfaction that gnawed at him.

What reason on earth did he have to be disaffected? He’d been met with scrupulous hospitality from the moment he’d crossed the threshold of Glyneira. He’d eaten his fill of plain but nourishing fare, and the cider here tasted far superior to that of the last place he’d stayed. The company appeared good-natured and eager to be entertained.

So what was goading him like a burr in his breeches? Con asked himself. Surely it wasn’t childish pique at Enid for neglecting him? Or was it?

After all, they’d grown up almost like brother and sister for their first seventeen years, then hadn’t lain eyes on each other for the past dozen odd. Was it too much to expect she might set aside her chores to spend a little time with him? Especially since he’d be off in the morning and might never see her again.

Clearly he’d hoodwinked himself into imagining she’d worried about him after they parted, thirteen years ago. If she’d cared for him half as much as he’d worshipped her once upon a time, she’d have shown him more than the dutiful interest of any hostess in the comfort a chance-come guest.

If he hadn’t known better, he’d have suspected she was deliberately trying to avoid him, until she could send him on his way at the earliest opportunity. But what reason could Enid have for that?

“Were you ever to Jerusalem in your travels, Master Conwy?” The priest’s question shook Con from his musings.

“Twice or thrice.” He nodded and glanced from Father Thomas to Idwal, a big quiet fellow who followed their talk with a look of intense concentration. “Mostly I fought in the north, in the service of the Prince of Edessa.”

The priest drained his flagon of cider, probably to grease his tongue for another rambling tale about his uncle.

Partly to forestall that, and partly because he hadn’t been able to coax a straight answer out of Enid, Con said, “It can’t have been an easy winter here since the master met his end.”

Kiwal’s broad brow furrowed deeper, while the priest replied, “Not as bad as it might have been, perhaps.”

“How so, Father?” When he sensed the priest was reluctant to say more, Con reassured him. “I only ask because Enid and I are old friends and distant kin. She might be too proud to beg my help on her own account, but if there is anything she or her children need, I’d find the means to assist them.”

“You are a true Christian, sir!” Father Thomas clapped a beefy arm over Con’s shoulders. “As you can see, this is no prince’s llys, but folks aren’t starving either. The lady Enid has always been a careful manager and Howell’s sisters are both smart, industrious women. Though it was hard on them to watch Howell die slowly of his wounds, they had Our Lord’s own comfort knowing they’d done everything needful to ease him.”

Con replied with a thoughtful nod. The old priest had a point. What part of the hurt a body took from the loss of a loved one came from guilt over being unable to prevent or assuage the death?

“Everyone had time to grow used to the idea of Howell’s going before he went,” continued Father Thomas. “Not too much time, heaven be praised for mercy, but enough. Enough for him to make a good confession and die shriven. Who of us can ask for more?”

“You speak wisdom, Father.”

The priest cracked a broad grin and nodded around the room where folk were leaning back from their meal, rubbing their teeth with green hazel twigs to clean them, and talking quietly amongst themselves. “I’m wise enough to know it’s poor manners to keep the bard’s stories all for my own amusement when the rest of the company is eager to hear.”

He cast a look at Enid, who nodded. At that Father Thomas lurched to his feet and clapped his large fleshy hands for silence. “Attend you, now! We have the very great honor this evening of a proper bard among us. Conwy ap Ifan is kin to our lady Enid and a native of Gwynedd. He passed the winter months in the southern cantrevs and spring has lured him north to Powys. In his time, he’s ventured far abroad, travelling through the kingdoms of the Franks and as far away as the Holy Land. But I will sit down and hold my tongue now, so you may hear the rest from his own lips. The hall is yours, Master Con.”

The company cheered as Con hoisted his harp and left his seat at the high table to move nearer the fire.

“I thank you for that eloquent welcome, Father Thomas.” He pulled his fingertips over the harp strings in a quick run. “It’s true I have wandered far abroad in my travels, but it only taught me the wisdom of the old saying ‘God made Wales first, then, with the beauty he had leftover, he fashioned the rest of the world.’”

If that didn’t dispose the crowd in his favor, nothing would. Yet as he spoke the words, Con knew they were more than hollow flattery. These past weeks, as he’d reacquainted himself with the land he’d forsaken in his youth, it seemed as though a skilled but invisible hand plucked at the cords of his heart, making warm, resonant music such as he could only echo with his harp.

“Here’s a tune I often sang to myself in far-off places when I grew lonely for home.” Con plucked out the bittersweet melody he’d played so often. “Llywn Onn.” “The Ash Grove.”

“The grand Ash Grove Palace was home to a chieftain, who ruled as the lord of a handsome domain.”

Around him folks swayed to the music and began to hum haunting harmonies.

As he went on to sing of the chieftain’s beautiful daughter who had many rich suitors, no amount of will could keep Con’s gaze from flocking to Enid.

“She only had eyes for a pure-hearted peasant, which kindled the rage in her proud father’s chest…”

That hadn’t been the way of it, of course. Enid had been too dutiful a daughter and too practical a creature ever to brave her father’s displeasure by choosing a lowly plow-boy over the nephew of a prince.

“I’d rather die here at my true love’s side than live long in grief in the lonely Ash Grove.”

As the song wound to its beautiful, poignant conclusion, was it his foolish fancy, or some capricious trick of the firelight…? Or did a mist of tears turn Enid’s eyes into a pair of glittering dark amethysts?

What of it, good sense demanded, if a woman who’d been recently widowed got a little teary over a plaintive song? Only a fool would think “The Ash Grove” meant to her what it had long meant to him.

Besides, it was too early in the evening for sad songs. Time to lighten the mood.

“Here’s one for the children.” Con swept his gaze around the room, winking at each one in turn. “I hope they can help me sing it, for I always make a fearful muddle of the colors.”

“Where is the goat? It’s time for milking.” He cocked a hand to his ear and the young ones sang back to him, “Off among the craggy rocks the old goat is wandering. Goat white, white, white with her lip white, lip white, lip white…”

By the time they called the black, red and blue goats, everyone was laughing and clapping. Con followed with several more light ditties about robins and larks and the return of springtime. Then he recited the familiar story-poem about the children of Llyr being magically transformed into swans.

As he oiled his throat with a few more drops of cider and tuned his harp for more music, Con noticed Enid trying to usher her protesting children off to bed.

“Let them stay a while longer, why don’t you?” He added his own entreaty to theirs. “Remember when we were their age and the bard from Llyn came to your father’s hall? How vexed we were over being chased off to bed.”

Enid shot him a glare of purple menace that told him she remembered all too well. He’d had a grand idea they should crawl onto the roof and listen to the music that wafted up the chimney. It had all gone without a hitch until Enid had fallen asleep and rolled off the roof, knocking out a tooth and breaking her arm. He’d been able to scramble away and pretend innocence. Since Enid had vowed by all the Welsh saints that she’d been alone in her mischief, he’d escaped the skinning he probably deserved.

How many other wild schemes of his had she paid the price for over the years?

Before Con could ponder that question, Enid scoured up a grudging smile for her children. “Very well, then, you may bide a little longer. Only a wee while, though, mind? And only because the pitch of this roof is steeper than my father’s. You’d break your young necks, like as not.”

Myfanwy and Davy exchanged sidelong glances and mystified shrugs. Con understood, though. He winked at Enid and was rewarded with a reluctant twist of her lips.

“I’ll keep it brief,” he assured her.

“You do that.” If Enid meant to sound stern, she didn’t quite succeed. “It isn’t only the children who need their rest. Others have a full day’s work ahead of them tomorrow, and you have a long walk to wherever you’re headed.”

Wherever he was headed? To Hen Coed and Macsen ap Gryffith. Another step closer to that knighthood and his triumphant return to the Holy Land. Why did that prize not glitter as brightly as it had just a few hours ago?

Never one to dwell on unpleasant thoughts, Con pushed the question out of his mind.

“Here’s a song I learned in Antioch,” he told his audience, launching into an eerie wail of a melody.