Winchester, England

1072

 

Lady Tanon Risande gathered all her breath for a scream she hoped would alert her father to her peril. But a rock struck her in the shoulder, and she yelped instead. For a moment, she teetered on the thick branch in the tree she was sitting in, her huge green eyes opened wide with terror. She flailed her arms to grab hold of something and plummeted to the ground.

If it weren’t for the lights swimming around her head, Tanon would have thrown up. Oh, and wouldn’t it have been wonderful to do the like all over Roger deCourtenay. She thought about it while she spat a few blades of summer grass and a small pebble from her mouth.

Tanon heard Roger laughing before she lifted her face to glare at him. That is, she wanted to glare at him. Oui, just the way her father glowered down at Cook when he almost broke his tooth on a stone in the bread. She tried to flare her nostrils and squint her eyes all mean and dark as William had taught her, but her bottom lip began to tremble against her chin. Her eyes filled with huge tears instead.

Roger laughed harder. In fact, he laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe. Bending at the middle, he held his belly with one hand and covered his mouth with the other. He must have feared some passerby wouldn’t know what he was laughing at, so he released his gaping mouth to point at her and squeal afresh. It would have been mortifying enough if he didn’t have an audience, but to his good fortune, he did. Most of the children living at Winchester Castle were there. Tanon could forgive Hilary and Janie Pendleton for laughing at her, as they were a bit younger than she was and didn’t realize how rude they were. Henry and Thomas Drake had made nervous faces while Roger hurled his rocks at her. But like all the other children, they said nothing. Better Tanon than them. They were all afraid of Roger. Tanon was afraid of him, too. But that wasn’t why she didn’t pick up a rock and hurl it right back at him. She didn’t want him to tell his father, the Earl of Blackburn, because his father would tell the king. And Tanon didn’t ever want to make William angry with her. She wasn’t afraid of William. Oh, non, she loved the king almost as much as she loved her own papa. He made the best faces of all. Even better than the mean scowls her mama’s lady maid, Elsbeth, made.

Tanon knew Roger didn’t like her. She not only refused to go along with his cruel pranks, like putting ants in the goat’s milk and rubbing tree sap on Chloe the cat’s paws, but she had the audacity to admonish him for being such a bully. It didn’t stop him from being mean, though. When she cried at seeing poor Chloe’s failed attempts to walk, Roger and the others teased her for a full se’nnight.

Right now, though, Tanon didn’t care why he disliked her. Fueled by his coaxing, the other children laughed at her, called her Twiggy Tanon, and snorted like pigs when she crossed their paths, because her best friend was Petunia the pig. There was one small consolation; none of the children had ever struck her, until today. Tanon was Lord Brand the Passionate’s daughter, after all. And when it came to Tanon, her papa could be even meaner than Roger.

“Twiggy Tanon dropped outta that tree like a scrawny chicken!” Roger howled with glee. When he saw Tanon ball her hands into little fists, he sobered quickly and stomped toward her. When he was satisfied that his looming presence over her was frightening enough to make her wet her skirts, he clenched his teeth and shook his fist in her face. His blond hair fell into his eyes and over the spray of freckles across his nose. “If you tell your father, I’ll skin your pig and then eat her for supper.”

Tanon gasped; two tears spilled over the rims of her long black lashes. Roger took one look at her and doubled over again, pointing to her mouth.

“Toothless Tanon!” he shouted and did a little dance in the grass, still holding his belly.

Tanon snapped her mouth shut, but inside she flicked her tongue across her teeth. She looked around the tall summer-green blades, spotted her tooth, and then took off running before Roger could see her sobbing.

She ran straight into the arms of her beloved William.

“Here, now, where are you running off to, little one?” William put his enormous hands on her shoulders and stopped her in her tracks. When Tanon wiped her eyes, keeping her head bent, he squatted in front of her to get a look at her face. He was scowling when Tanon peeked up at him. She wished she could look that mean. “Would you like to tell me who made you cry?” he asked.

Tanon shook her head no but caught his suspicious frown aimed at Roger and the others down the hill. An instant later, William plucked her gently from the ground. Tanon was sure her William was taller than the tree she just fell out of, but he would never drop her, and she settled into his brawny chest, safe at last. He was, after all, the king.

“Ma précieuse,” he cooed after she offered him her most grateful dimple-inducing smile. “Did you know you’re missing a tooth?” he asked, and then he stroked her long raven curls when she buried her face in his neck and cried for all she was worth.

Her papa was even less pleased by her appearance than she was after she peered in her mother’s tiny looking glass. Tanon didn’t like it, but she had to lie to her papa. She had no choice. She was sure God would forgive her. Petunia’s life was at stake, after all.

“I tell you I fell out of a tree, Papa,” she insisted after a long time of being questioned in William’s private solar.

“And no one caused you to fall from this tree, Tanon?” Lord Brand Risande paced before his daughter with his hands folded behind his back.

Though his gaze was wonderfully warm when he looked at her, Tanon swallowed, praying he couldn’t tell she was lying. She shook her head, afraid to speak lest he had some secret fatherly way of knowing her deceit by the quavering pitch of her voice.

“William told me he saw Roger deCourtenay and the Drake boys. They had naught to do with your lost tooth, or falling from the tree?”

Tanon kept a clear vision of Petunia’s big brown eyes and her chubby little body in her mind to strengthen her. She would never put someone she loved, even if that someone was a something, in jeopardy. Still, she couldn’t look her papa in the eyes when she spoke. She fingered the colorful stitching in her gown instead. “Non, Papa. They had naught to do with it.”

Brand glanced at William, who sat casually in a huge chair beside the hearth. Brand knew his daughter often tripped over her own feet and could have easily fallen out of the tree without any help, but the way she was fidgeting in her chair told him she was lying. Whom was she trying to protect? William shrugged his massive shoulders, offering no answers to the unspoken question.

“Tanon” Her papa’s voice was so soft and soothing it somehow, magically, made her look at him, and he smiled. “You’re the oldest, daughter. You must remember to always set a good example for your brothers and tell the truth. I should like to know if anyone is making you unhappy. King William invited us to his home for the summer in the hopes that you would enjoy yourself and mayhap make some friends.”

“Oh, but I have made a friend, Papa.” Tanon grinned at him, exposing the little gaping hole where her front tooth used to be. “Petunia is my friend.”

“Petunia is a pig,” her father gently reminded her. William couldn’t help but smile at her.

Tanon chose to ignore her father’s low opinion of her closest friend. She loved Petunia, and she was certain Petunia loved her in return.

“Your mother is quite upset that you fell out of a tree,” her papa told her, making her feel terrible all over again. “You could have broken your neck instead of just your tooth. Now tell me what happened.” He folded his arms across his chest and stared at her, waiting.

Tanon fidgeted in her seat. She looked at William and he winked at her. “Papa?”

“Oui?”

“Have you ever had a best friend?”

“William is my best friend.”

Tanon gave William her widest smile, pleased that her papa loved him almost as much as she did. “Wouldn’t you do anything to make certain no mean boys ever hurt him?”

Her papa nodded his head and then went to her chair and knelt in front of her. “Did mean boys tell you they were going to hurt Petunia?”

Tanon gasped. “Non!” She simply could not believe how clever her papa was! How did he know she was talking about Petunia? Oh, she lamented, now her dear sweet Petunia would surely end up on Roger deCourtenay’s supper table. Huge tears welled up in her eyes, and her lower lip began to tremble. She looked at William because he had such a nice face and she needed to stop herself from crying so that her papa wouldn’t get angry and beat Roger deCourtenay’s hide.

“Your papa would do anything to keep me safe, sunshine,” William told her, rising to his feet. That was all he did, but it brought an end to her papa’s questions. “Why, I would even call it a noble thing to tell a few untruths to protect someone, or something, you love.” He leaned over and kissed the top of Tanon’s head. “Oui, noble indeed. Don’t you agree, Brand?”

“I do.” Her papa smiled at her, and Tanon blew out an explosive breath. “Go find your mother and let her tidy your hair. And Tanon,” he called out when she bolted out of her chair and skipped toward the door. “No more climbing trees.”

She nodded, clearly disappointed, but didn’t argue as she left.

 

“She lied to me to protect a pig.” Brand poured two cups of ale and handed one to William before he sat down.

“Oui.” William grinned. He couldn’t have been more pleased if Hereward the Wake were found hanged in the courtyard outside. “’Tis rare to find such bravery and devotion in one so young, Brand. Brynna has done well raising her.”

Brand laughed softly, leaning back in his chair. “You’re a married man, William. When will you cease pining for my wife?”

“Never,” the king replied. He downed his drink and let out a long sigh.

“Wales?” Brand asked, knowing what prompted his longtime friend to begin pacing.

“Oui, Wales. They’re resilient bastards, the Welsh. Merde, Brand, they’re savage.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“I understand why the Mercian king, Offa, sought so forcefully to keep them out of England centuries ago. Their princes fight among themselves as fervently as they fight us. Fortunately for us, all their internal wars have left them weak. My marcher lords have been able to hold them off along the borders. Still, there is resistance to our occupancy. Herefordshire has sustained particularly high losses.”

“I know,” Brand said. “Hugh La Morte lost his entire garrison there last spring.”

“Oui.” William nodded and turned to stare into the flames of the crackling hearth. “Brand, I’ve recently met with a Welsh prince, a descendent of King Rhodri, and the son of Tewdwr Mawr, who many years ago was king of Deheubarth in the south. Rival princes have challenged his inherited territorial rights, but I’ve no doubt he will someday rule all of southern Wales. I’ve yet to see any man fight as he does. He moves at the touch of a breeze.”

“Do you plan on helping him accomplish becoming king of the south, William?”

The king shrugged his shoulders, “Perhaps. He’s an intelligent man. I believe that if he is able to take the throne in Deheubarth, we may be able to secure peace between our people. The marches along central Wales are almost secured. The fighting there against us has all but ceased. I wish the same for the south.”

Brand nodded, listening. He knew there was something more pressing on William’s mind.

“I’ve invited him to Winchester to meet you. He arrives in two days with his nephews.”

“To meet me?” Brand laughed softly. “Why?”

William’s charcoal eyes met Brand’s, and the regret in them caused Brand’s smile to fade. “Why, William?” he asked again, more serious this time.

“Because, mon ami, I’ve promised Tanon to Rhys’s nephew Cedric.”

Brand bolted to his feet, his eyes wide with disbelief, then anger. “You would sacrifice my daughter to buy allegiance from savages?”

William looked away. “Non, I would secure the loyalty of a family with the power to end a resistance that could last another hundred years and cost more lives than you or I can comprehend. The marcher lords rule the land they inhabit by my own decree. What goes on there is almost completely out of my hands. But I must show my support for peace.”

“By pledging my daughter?”

“My goddaughter,” William reminded him in a somber tone. “Forgive me.” He placed his hand on Brand’s shoulder as he moved to pass him. “I am surrounded by enemies.”

                                                                                                              #

 Tanon was curious about the news when she overheard her nurse, Rebecca, discussing the arrival of “the savage Welsh” at Winchester.  Tanon had no idea who the savage Welsh was, but she decided that he must be someone of great importance when she heard her papa telling her mama that William had promised him something very precious. It must have been something precious indeed, because Mama wept for hours after that.

Tanon wanted to look pretty on the day of the savage Welsh’s arrival, as she was William’s friend. She even let Rebecca and Alysia tug on her curls without so much as a peep of complaint. What kind of example would she set if their guest thought William’s friends were as dirty as the pigpen? Of course, Tanon didn’t mind playing in the pigpen, even though it meant having to take a bath; it was fun to play in the mud with Petunia.

She wished she were allowed to play with the horses, especially Uncle Dante’s white one. Ayla was so pretty with her snowy white mane and wild eyes. Everyone else was afraid of her, but not Tanon. She even hoped to ride her one day.

“Don’t you look lovely this morn,” William said after she entered the throne room with her parents and stopped before the king’s special chair.

“Thank you, William.” She flashed him a toothless grin and then moved closer to him and whispered. “You might think of telling the same to mama. She has been crying all morn. I think it’s because she is getting fatter than Clara the cow. I do hope this time she has a girl, because I am sick of brothers.” 

It was only after a man chuckled softly beside the king that Tanon noticed him, and the group of boys staring at her.  These must be William’s guests, though she hadn’t thought there would be so many of them. She hoped her mama never had that many boys.

They looked strange. Who ever heard of boys wearing braids? Their breeches were fashioned from hide, their patterned tunics belted with rope. And even the smallest boy carried a dagger tucked at his waist. His wildness appealed to her. She smiled at him, remembering her lessons in good manners, and because he was smiling at her. One of the taller boys behind him scowled at her. Tanon decided she didn’t like that one. He had mean eyes like Roger’s. The younger one had eyes of pretty blue.

Tanon curtsied to the youngest guest. “Well met.”

“Cyfarchion,” the boy replied.

She crinkled her nose and giggled. “What does that mean?”

“’Tis Cymraeg. Welsh,” the oldest man corrected himself with a low chuckle. He had a nice smile, like the boy. “It means ‘greetings.’ My nephews haven’t learned all of your words yet.”

Tanon hoped that when they did their voices would sound as musical as his.

“Lady Risande,” William said. Tanon straightened her shoulders, knowing by his use of her title that she needed to be especially polite now. “This is Prince Rhys ap Tewdwr, and these are his nephews.” He called out eight names in all, but Tanon took notice of only two. Cedric, the mean-looking one, whom William gestured to first, and Gareth, the younger boy.

 “Are you all princes?” Tanon asked, spreading her wide gaze over the brothers.

“I haven’t any children of my own. When I become king of Deheubarth”—Prince Rhys bent to her and winked and she giggled at the way the last word rolled off his lips–“I will make my nephews princes.”

While she laughed, Gareth lifted his finger to her dimple and poked it gently. Cedric murmured something. Tanon couldn’t understand it, but she knew it was rude by the way he clenched his jaw, and by the way Gareth glared at him over his shoulder. 

Tanon decided not to smile at Cedric anymore, since he was being so ill-mannered, but on Gareth she bestowed her friendliest grin. She hoped he would speak to her more, because the guests’ peculiar words made her belly tickle.

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Tanon couldn’t really say whether Gareth was someone she might want to make friends with. He was proving to be as ill-mannered as his brother. He hadn’t spoken a single word to her since their introduction two days ago. He ignored her when she tried to speak to him. William kept asking her to be more polite to Cedric. But he refused to use his Anglo words with her, so she didn’t understand him. Also, William had told her that Cedric was ten and seven. Tanon was certain that he wouldn’t want to play with her, so she gave up trying to be nice to him.

“You’re very quiet, aren’t you?” she asked Gareth one day, appearing beside him while he made his way toward the stables.

He didn’t speak, or even look at her, but picked up his pace to walk ahead. Tanon clenched her hands at her sides. “I think you’re a very rude mute.”

That was when she noticed how soft his hair looked. His loose braid draped down his back. Two stray locks of gold dangled at his shoulders. He pivoted to look at her. He didn’t say anything. He simply stood there looking too old for a boy of only ten summers. His face was pensive, his blue eyes narrowed on hers.

“My brothers speak…” he began and then shook his head. “My brothers said you are gelyn—my enemy.”

The hard expression Tanon tried to maintain faded into a look of heartrending disbelief. “Your enemy? But why? What have I done?”

He looked at her as if he wanted to say something else.  A breeze drifted across his face, and without another word he turned and strode away.

The next few days passed in much the same manner, but Tanon had stopped trying to talk to Gareth. Instead, she followed him. She watched him ride his horse around William’s land with his uncle and his brothers. His brothers seemed to enjoy thrashing him, or at least, trying to thrash him. Most of the time they failed. Even on a steed as large as her papa’s, Gareth avoided being struck, either by ducking low over his saddle or arching his back.

In the great hall, Tanon covertly watched him eat his food. She even giggled when he stuck his finger in cook Charlie’s tarts to check what was inside before shoving them into his mouth.

Gareth finally did speak to Tanon at the end of his first week at Winchester. It was a lovely summer afternoon, and she was thoroughly enjoying it with Petunia. She skipped in a field of yellow daisies behind the barn, singing a song she’d heard some of the men singing in the great hall after they’d drunk all of William’s wine. It wasn’t a ditty fit for a young girl, but Tanon didn’t know that, and she was barely mindful of her voice anyway, what with picking daisies and all. Thankfully, Rebecca had let her out without pinning up her hair. She hated how they pinched her head, and by the end of her excursions, most of her unruly curls had come loose anyway. Besides, she liked how her curls felt bouncing around her face. Her mother often shook her head and told her that she had her father’s heart. That made Tanon even happier than visiting William did.

She didn’t hear Roger and the Drake brothers sneaking up on her until their scratchy voices shattered her reverie.

“Twiggy Tanon goes snort, snort, snort!” A round of laughter followed that insult before another voice rang out.

“Mayhap she sleeps with the swine, too. She certainly sings like one.”

The three boys circled her and her pig. And then Roger began to chase Petunia. Tanon shouted at him to stop, but he snorted at her and laughed again. Luckily, Petunia was too quick for Roger, but he almost struck her with his foot when he tried to kick her. Tanon screamed and shook her fist at him.

“You leave her alone this instant, Roger deCourtenay, or I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” he challenged, his eyes gleaming with anger as he stopped chasing Petunia and took a step closer to Tanon. “What will you do?”

He lifted his hand to strike her, and Tanon squeezed her eyes shut behind her obsidian curls. The Drake boys looked around to make certain no one was watching.

But someone was.

Tanon opened her eyes just in time to see Gareth reach Roger, yank him around so that they faced each other, and then shove him backward with such force Roger landed hard on his rump.

“Gwna mo chyffwrdd 'i!” Gareth shouted at him. Tanon pushed her hair away and stared at him. Oh, did he look mean!

“What?” Roger deCourtenay’s lip actually trembled. He wasn’t laughing now.

“Bod cerddedig,” her new champion growled, motioning with his hand for Roger to run away.

Tanon wanted to clap her hands before Roger and the others even had time to flee. She sprang forward, tripped over her skirts, and then righted herself again. “You did it! You frightened Roger deCourtenay!” She had never been so happy in her life. She would have leaped right into Gareth’s arms if he weren’t already turning away.

“Please, wait,” she pleaded, barely able to stop herself. She  blew her curls away and touched his hand before he moved to leave her. “You saved Petunia.” She didn’t know if he understood her or not, so she smiled at him.

He just stood there staring at her for a moment. Then he did what she’d been waiting for. He smiled back. And this time it was even better than the first.

They hardly left each other after that. Roger was sent to Normandy a few days later. With their leader gone and a new champion watching over her, the other children left Tanon alone. She spent the remainder of her summer days playing with Gareth.

Unfortunately, just when Tanon decided she liked Gareth even better than Petunia, the summer was over and she had to go home.

                                                                                                               #

Gareth stretched out on the banks of the river Clwyd and looked up at the midnight sky littered with glimmering stars. For a moment, he held his breath at the beauty of it. For a moment, he forgot that he killed eight men. And it was only the first day of the battle.

He turned to his best friend, Madoc sitting in the faint, grey moonlight eating an apple.

“She’s very bold and adventurous.”

“Who is?”

“Tanon Risande. The girl who was promised to Cedric.”

“The Norman girl?” his friend asked, sounding rather unfazed.

“Yes. She’s very…pretty and…cute, with a head of curls blacker than a moonless night. Her eyes are filled with sunlight and joy. Her smile is both confident and dutiful—”

“You care for your brother’s Norman betrothed?”

Gareth blinked in rapid succession. He didn’t know what to say when it was presented in all its painful truth. “Yes,” he confided, easier because it was to Madoc, and in the dark. “I didn’t tell you when we returned from Winchester because I had hoped that not speaking of her would drive her from my thoughts. But I can’t stop thinking about her and her toothless smile.”

“How did she lose a tooth?” Madoc asked.

Gareth remembered how she’d told him about her tooth, breaking through their language barrier using hand motions and sighs when he didn’t understand right away. “Roger deCourtenay threw a rock at her and knocked her out of a tree.”

The darkness was silent for a moment or two, save for the sound of Madoc’s slowed, even breath. “Has he paid for this offense?”

“Yes, but Cedric is worse and she will wed him when she comes of age.”

Gareth couldn’t hide the torment in his voice. “He doesn’t want peace with the Normans. I heard him say my uncle was as dangerous as our enemies. Mayhap there’s a way to convince my uncle that Cedric will bring war and not peace, even at the cost of my uncle Rhys’ life. I’ll find a way to keep whatever land I rule at peace before I bring her to it.”

Madoc didn’t laugh at him or call him a fool for vowing all this for a Norman girl, but pledged his aid and his loyalty.

Gareth closed his eyes and she was there, chasing her pig in the pigpen, covered in mud, or spending hours meticulously cleaning tree sap from Chloe the cat’s paws. Her smiles, radiating light that brightened his days, her laughter, that filled the vale and echoed throughout the chambers of his heart. He wanted to protect her from the Roger deCourtenays in the world.

“I’ll become the most dangerous man in the kingdoms and then I’ll take her and no one will stop me.”