Rexanne Becnel Read Free Page B

Perhaps it was as the Welsh folk believed. Newlin would outlive them all. If so, Rand hoped he gave the same sensible advice to Gavin and his heirs that he’d always given to Rand.
    He waved the rest of the party on. They continued down the road, all except for Josselyn, who reined her palfrey beside his destrier.
    “So. To London,” Newlin said.
    “To London,” Rand echoed. “All of us, English and Welsh alike, pray that young Henry will do better by his people than Stephen did.”
    The old bard shrugged one of his bent shoulders. “Like all who would lead, he will not please everyone who falls within his shadow.”
    “Will he please us?” Josselyn asked.
    Newlin smiled at her, a sweet smile that befitted a child more than such a gnarled and aged man. But Newlin was not like other men.
    “Henry’s desires are much the same as your husband’s. Peace through strength, and prosperity for all.”
    “Doesn’t everyone want that?” she asked.
    “For the most part, yes. But one man’s peace—one man’s prosperity—they may be very unlike another’s.”
    Rand’s fingers clenched around the reins. He did not notice the pain in his knuckles. “Unlike one another’s. Are you saying Henry’s reign will bring a renewal of the conflicts here along the Marches?”
    Again the bard shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps, however, it is only a different approach that may continue the bounty and accord of these past several years.”
    “What different approach? The people here have been—”
    “Times change,” Josselyn put in, laying a hand on his arm. “We cannot know what the future will hold when Gavin becomes lord of Rosecliffe.”
    “ If he becomes lord of Rosecliffe,” Newlin said. The words were soft, with no hint of threat in them. But Rand stiffened in alarm, as did Josselyn.
    “Is Gavin in danger?” She urged her mount nearer the flat-topped domen . “Is he safe?”
    The bard smiled. “Do not alarm yourself, child. Gavin will
forge his own future. But as with your other children, that future may not be the same one you envision. Their choices may not be your choices.”
    Josselyn’s tense posture eased. “Do you refer now to Isolde and her father’s foolish choice of a husband for her?” She shot Rand a sidelong look. He glowered back at her.
    Newlin looked away, past them toward Rosecliffe Castle, resplendent on its hilltop site. It gleamed in the morning sun, impregnable and yet not intimidating. “Isolde will be mistress of her own fate. You have raised your children well. They must forge their own lives now. And you must let them.” Then he settled into himself, subsiding like a drained wineskin, seeming almost to shrink as he pulled his thoughts back into the recesses of his remarkable brain.
    He would speak no more, Rand knew, so he turned his horse away from the domen , and with Josselyn at his side, they regained the road.
    “Good advice, don’t you think?” Josselyn murmured.
    “Perhaps,” Rand conceded after a long pause.
    “So you will not press Isolde further on the matter of young Halyard? Perhaps we should send a rider back for her. I hate for her to miss this trip to London.”
    He grunted. “You push too hard, woman.”
    “Do I?” She guided her palfrey closer until her knee bumped his. “Rand,” she began in a cajoling tone.
    “She stays where she is. She is too stubborn to suit any man and I want her to think on the error of her ways.”
    “But what of this matter of her betrothal to Mortimer Halyard?”
    He shifted in his saddle. It was bad enough to suspect he was wrong on that front. It was harder still to admit as much to his wife. “I may reconsider that idea,” he muttered at last. “But she still needs a husband.”
    He was rewarded at once by her warm hand on his thigh. “You are so wonderful,” she said. “I hope Isolde can find a man as perfect as you.”
    “Perfect?” he scoffed. “Hah!”
    “You were perfect last night,” she murmured. “At least I