The Reckoning - 3 Read Free Page B

of treason."
For a fleeting second, so quickly they might have imagined it, Davydd's smile seemed to flicker. But then he laughed. "Not very sporting of you, Llewelyn.
After I went to so much trouble to vex you, you might at least give me the satisfaction of a scowl or two!"
Llewelyn's smile was one that Davydd alone seemed to evoke, halfamused, half-angry. But before he could respond, a voice was calling out, "My lord
Prince!" The man was one of the gatehouse guards, bundled up against the cold, well-dusted with snow. "Two men seek entry to the castle, my lord."
"For God's pity, bid them enter. I'd not turn away a stray cur on a night like this."
"We knew that, my lord, admitted them at once. They're halffrozen, for certes, although one of them is soaked with sweat, too, burning with fever. We thought you should know that he claims to be a highborn lord."
Llewelyn and Davydd exchanged interested glances. "An English lord, I'd wager," Davydd drawled, "for only an Englishman would be crazed enough to venture out in weather like this."
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The guard grinned, savoring the revelation to come. "You're half right, my lord Davydd, for if he speaks true, our guest is but half-English. You see the lad with him swears by all the saints that he is Simon de Montfort's son!"
BRAN did not at once remember where he was. His bed was piled high with fur coverlets, and as he started to sit up, he discovered that his ribs were newly bandaged. Obviously he was amongst friends. His eyes were adjusting to the dark now, and he found Hugh asleep on a nearby pallet. The sight of the boy brought back memories of their harrowing journey into the mountains of Eryri.
Hugh's name was forming on his lips, but he caught himself in time. No, let the lad sleep. He reached for a flagon by the bedside table and drank gratefully. They seemed to be in a corner of the great hall, screened off for privacy. He wondered what time it was, what day it was. He was drifting back toward sleep when the screen shifted; a shadow flitted through the opening.
The intruder was a child, slender and small-boned, with a tangled mane of reddish-brown hair that hid her face. She moved over the floor rushes as silently as a cat, paused by the bed, where she stared solemnly down at Bran.
He watched her through half-closed eyes, drowsily amused by the intensity of her scrutiny. He judged her age to be about seven, and he wondered what had drawn her to his bedside. When she reached out, put something on his pillow, he smiled at her, asked her name.
She froze at the sudden sound of a human voice, as a wild creature might, not so much timid as wary. Bran had spoken without thinking in Norman-French, the language of the English upper classes, and he laughed now at his own foolishness; how could he expect this Welsh wraith to understand an alien tongue? But then she said, in flawless French, "I am Caitlin. Bran is a Welsh name. Are you Welsh?"
"No, but I had a Welsh nurse when I was a lad. Bran was her pet name for me, and it stuck." He genuinely liked children, and usually they sensed it;
Caitlin moved closer, tossing her hair back to reveal a thin little face, well smudged with grime, eyes of a truly startling green. Not pretty, perhaps, but appealing in an ethereal, fey sort of way, a fairy child to be conjured up by fever, or an overwrought imagination. Bran laughed again; should he ask if she were real? "What did you bring me, Caitlin?"
"Holly. You must keep it dose whilst you are ailing, for it will ward off evil spirits," she said gravely, and he promised no less gravely that
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he would. The holly leaves pricked his fingers, fell into the floor rushes.
Soon he slept again.
When he awakened, candles had chased away some of the shadows, and Hugh was bending over the bed. "How do you feel, my lord? Well enough to sup with
Prince Llewelyn?"
Bran nodded, and with Hugh's help, managed to dress. His lingering weakness was a source of unease; for most of his thirty years, hfeiody had done