In the Shadow of Midnight - By Marsha Canham Page 0,9
her solitude.”
He reached around and grasped the dead fawn by the slender forelegs, lifting it from the horse’s rump and dangling the soft, lifeless body for Ariel to admire. “A single arrow at two hundred paces,” he boasted. “It should provide a tender meal for a maiden of such … tender abilities.”
If the gentle mockery was meant to flatter her prowess with the ambush, it fell well short of the mark. Ariel’s gaze grew even colder and harder and she forced herself to turn away from the arrogant Welshman before she gave way to the temptation to slash his grin to bloody ribbons.
She waited for Henry to retrieve his gloves before she trusted herself to speak. “Did I hear you say you brought news from the king?”
He looked up sharply and stared at her for a moment. “I, ah … Aye. Aye, I do have news.”
“Well?”
“Well …” Henry’s stomach responded with an audible and prolonged gurgle. “Better it should wait until we reach Pembroke. Is Lady Isabella there, or has she left for Cavenham?”
“She is still here … why?” Ariel grabbed Henry’s arm and blanched a shade. “Is it Uncle Will? Have you brought news of Uncle Will? He is not—? He has not been—?”
“The lord marshal is fine,” Henry assured her quickly. “At least he was the last time I heard.”
Ariel’s shoulders rounded briefly with relief, then squared again with a return of impatience. “Then what is it? What has you squirting over logs and travelling in the company of … of outlaws?”
Henry glanced over his sister’s head, but the two Welshmen had either not heard the hissed insult, or, because they were indeed outlaws and deserving of the appellation, decided to ignore it.
“At home, Ariel,” he insisted grimly. “It will be best if I tell you at home.”
Chapter 2
The original keep of Pembroke Castle had been built thirty years after the Norman conquest of England, when the death of the great Welsh king Rhys ap Tewdwr had cleared the way for a further invasion into Wales. Initially a single square keep standing on the edge of a promontory of land, successive generations of prudent—and wealthy—lords had added towers and baileys, tall crenellated battlements and barbicans. William of Pembroke’s father-in-law, the immensely powerful warlord known as Strongbow, had used this castle stronghold as his base for the successful invasion of Ireland. Upon his death and the subsequent marriage of his daughter and heir Isabella to William, work had begun on the enormous eighty-foot-tall circular tower that commanded not only the view, but the respect of several square miles of land and sea surrounding the inlet of Milford Haven. Within a hard day’s ride of Pembroke there were other castles that had been raised to defend and hold this important thumb of Wales— Haverford, Tenby, Lewhaden, Stackpole, Narbeth, Martin. But none were as impressive, as important, or as impregnable as Pembroke.
To the wide-eyed child of four who had first passed beneath its enormous barbican gates, and who had clutched her brother’s hand and stared up in awe at the sharpened teeth of the three separate iron portcullises, the castle had appeared as terrifying and overwhelming as the giant, lion-maned knight who ruled there.
Ariel de Clare and her brother Henry had been sent into the marshal’s keeping upon the sudden death of Isabella’s half-brother and his wife. Barely wed a year and anticipating the arrival of their own first child, neither the gruff Earl of Pembroke nor his dainty wife knew what to make of the two orphaned children who stood in their grimy, tattered clothing before them. Young Henry, at eight years of age, was fiercely protective of his sister, daring to challenge even the marshal at swordpoint when a casual observation was made concerning the unusual, fiery red colour of her hair. Pembroke was quick to recant, albeit with the hint of a smile lurking behind his twinkling blue eyes, and even quicker to recognize Henry’s potential as a knight and vassal whose loyalty and bravery could be counted upon to the last drop of blood. As a result, the boy had not been fostered out to another household as had been William’s first intent, but became page to the Lady Isabella—a very great and grave honour which he bore with the solemnity of a grown man.
The tiny Lady Ariel, with her big green eyes flashing and her jaw jutting with determination, let it be known with equal vigor that she was just as impatient to begin her own