In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,12
no mistake. As I told you, we were delayed at Llandaff by heavy rains, and, as it happened, the king’s courier had sought refuge there as well. He readily accepted our offer to share a tankard of ale by the fire, and when we asked if he had any news from Normandy, his tongue began to flap like a codfish thrown aground. Soothly, since he was ignorant of our identity—we four addressing ourselves only as Lord Sedrick or Lord Rhys or Lord Whatnot—he thought it might prickle our humour and tip our flagon more generously to hear how the king had recently taken it upon himself to contract the hand of Pembroke’s niece. A few tankards more bought us the name of the happy groom.”
“Happy?” Ariel grumbled. “He will be happy with the business end of a pike thrust up his arse.”
Lady Isabella’s hand fluttered again. “Surely there might be some room for error. There are fully a score of De Braoses in the king’s service. Possibly more than one named Reginald, for they do tend to marry amongst themselves and name sons after fathers and brothers after uncles.”
“Inbreeding and incest.” Ariel spat contemptuously. “An easy guess by the squinty look of them.”
“This particular Reginald is certes the son of William de Braose,” Henry continued, ignoring his sister’s japing. “Who, until as recently as five months ago, presided as captain of the guard over the king’s citadel in Rouen.”
“A prison guard!” Ariel exclaimed. “How charming. The king has pledged me to the son of a common gaoler!”
“Not just any gaoler,” said Lord Rhys, venturing into the circle of firelight for the first time. Indeed, he showed a certain reckless courage by drawing close enough to Ariel that a stretch of his long arm could have touched her. “Forgive my intrusion, my lady, but I too am familiar with this particular brood of De Braoses. Some of the lands they lost to incompetence and poor defense border our own.”
Ariel caught a strong drift of leather and lingering wood-scent as Lord Rhys leaned casually close to the fire. Despite the immeasurable fury fomenting within her over the king’s proposed attempt to intervene in her life, she could still spare a portion for the unctuous Welsh princeling.
She had recognized their names when she had heard them in the forest. The lords Rhys and Dafydd had a third brother, older by some years, who had entered into a pact with King John, granting him recognition as Prince of Gwynedd and giving him power and title over the region of Wales known as Snowdonia. In exchange for this recognition, Llywellyn ap Iorwerth had halted his raids on the border Marches and had pledged fealty to the English king, a reprieve of hostilities which allowed Llywellyn to turn his full attention on the growing power of a distant kinsman, Gwynwynwyn of Powys.
All titles and holdings were tenuous at the best of times in the wild, mountainous reaches of Wales. Dozens of self-proclaimed princes ruled dozens of self-proclaimed kingdoms, the possession of which changed constantly from one bloody uprising to the next. To contain and control the savagery of these barbaric clans, the English had erected a line of fortified castles along the border, in territory known as the Marches. The barons who ruled these Marches were often as cruel, bloody-minded, and ruthless as the men they sought to defend against, and few lived long enough to ensure the natural succession of their lands into future generations.
Ariel’s father, Roger de Clare, had once held land along the Marches—land coveted by the ambitious Iorwerths of Gwynedd. A raid had cost Roger and his wife their lives, orphaning their two children into the wardship of the Earl of Pembroke. For this, and other deeds of outlawry over the years, it made anyone associated with the name Iorwerth … including Llywellyn and his brothers Rhys and Dafydd … nothing more than murderers and common thieves in her eyes.
“You say not just any gaoler as if there were gaolers of high blood and gaolers of low blood.”
Her voice dripped with icy sarcasm and Lord Rhys smiled. “More like prisoners of high or low blood, I trow. For unless I am mistaken—a rare occurrence, I assure you—the citadel at Rouen was where King John held the young Angevin prince, Arthur of Brittany.”
“Guarding a prince of royal blood does not turn one’s own blood any richer a hue,” she countered sardonically.
“No. But if you consider a gaoler has access to a prisoner at