In the morning, Morgan’s rash was gone. Within three days, his stomach quieted. By summer’s end he had grown three fingers taller.
Such a cure would make a man staunch in his faith. For certain that faith was at work in this orchard.
Now he was close, Owen wondered yet again what he should say to this brother he hardly knew. Begin with an apology for his years away? Explain why he was there? But Gruffydd had likely told him that. Compliment him on his lovely wife? She seemed young, but then Morgan was twelve years younger than Owen; he might be ten years older than his wife. Had he married late? Many men did if they could not afford their own land. Had he married Elen for this farm? It was an unusual thing for a Welsh family, to give such a farm to a daughter and her husband.
Morgan’s head jerked up. He had at last noticed that he was not alone in the orchard. He lowered the stone he had been fitting into the crumbling wall, rose slowly, brushed off his hands on his tunic. Unlike many of his countrymen, he wore leggings, though like Elen his feet were bare. He did not look much taller than his wife, and was slender as a boy, with hair as dark as Owen’s. He shaded his eyes and stared at Owen, then began to nod.
‘You look like the Devil himself, brother.’
Morgan had blue eyes so pale some folk at the wells had thought him blind, skin so pale it showed every welt, every emotion. All still the same. But there were deep ridges in his face from nose to chin, and his voice had a huskiness to it that did not sound healthy.
‘I
should
look like the Devil,’ Owen said. ‘It has been a long journey to this day.’
Morgan stepped forward, held out his hand. ‘That it has.’
They clasped hands, then embraced. Morgan was even thinner than he looked. He stepped back first, gazed up into Owen’s face.
‘You have not had an easy time of it, then.’
‘It is not for that a man goes soldiering.’
‘You have the Duke of Lancaster’s trust. You have done well.’
‘It is my wife and children who make me proud.’
‘She is English?’
‘She is.’
‘Is that why you wear that beard?’
Owen touched his chin. ‘She has never seen me without it.’
‘Then it would be best not to shave it off and frighten the children.’
Owen grinned, thinking Morgan made a joke. But his brother was not smiling. ‘Elen tells me that you have transformed this orchard.’
Morgan gazed at him quietly for a moment, then shook his head as if just noticing Owen had spoken. ‘Her father did not think an orchard a fitting thing for this valley. God felt otherwise.’
Owen had never known how to respond to such comments from anyone. Could a mortal be so sure of God’s purpose? Owen considered the mountain above with its rushing streams, the boggy soil. He could understand why someone might abandon an orchard in this place. And yet some of the trees were quite old, which proved survival was possible here. Perhaps that was what his brother meant, that the trees were a sign that God had blessed this improbable place.
‘God has been good to you.’
Morgan nodded.
Owen grew uncomfortable under his brother’s intense gaze. ‘Why did you not come to the castle with Gruffydd ap Goronwy?’
‘I must think of my family. Our honour.’
‘It would be dishonourable to dine with me at the castle?’
‘With him. Gruffydd. He is a traitor.’ The blue eyes burned into Owen.
‘To the English King, perhaps. But our countrymen might think otherwise.’
‘A traitor is a traitor, no matter whose side he betrays.’
‘Ah.’ So Morgan was quite the moralist. ‘And those in power might remember that you had accompanied him.’
‘Why have you befriended him?’
‘I do not know that I have. But I thought that he might know our family, who were also settled on escheated land. I see that you have risen above that trouble.’
‘I was fortunate in my first wife. The youngest daughter of an old family much respected.’
‘First wife? Then Elen is—’
‘My second wife. My first died giving birth to our third child. But I forget my manners. Come to the house. You must try Elen’s cider.’
They walked slowly through the orchard as Morgan talked about the trees, pointing out the heavy bearers, telling their ages. He sounded a happy man despite his frailty.
‘What of the others? Our parents? Angie and Gwen? Dafydd?’
Morgan paused, scratched his head. ‘You have heard nothing?’
‘You are the first one I have seen.’
‘And I shall be the last. You should have come sooner if you hoped for more.’
It was a cool way to impart such terrible news to kin. Granted, it was something Owen had feared, but had it been his ill fortune to give Morgan such news he would have found a way to soften the blow. ‘God grant them peace.’
‘Gwen still lives,’ Morgan said as he resumed his slow pace. ‘In a convent in Usk.’
‘Gwen? A nun?’ Owen’s voice cracked with relief and a sudden, nervous inclination to laugh.
Morgan sniffed. ‘You should be proud.’
‘I am. Proud and full of gladness to hear she is alive.’ And wishing he were in Usk now, not walking beside this cold brother.
‘The others are all gone. I shall do my best to answer your questions in the house.’
Elen had moved the cradle inside and greeted them at the door with foaming cups of cider. As she handed Owen a cup she searched his eye, touched his shoulder. ‘I see that my husband has rushed ahead with all the sad news you must have dreaded to hear.’
‘You would be wrong in that, wife,’ Morgan said. ‘I have not told him the tale of our father’s passing.’
They had but sat down on facing benches placed near the sole window when Morgan said, ‘You should know that our father was struck by lightning while working in the fields.’
‘God’s blood.’ Did his brother enjoy imparting bad news with such a blunt thrust?
‘Aye, it was a sudden bolt, no warning. No storm approached, nor did one all that day. All of Cydweli talked about it for years – I am surprised no one told you of this. I think that is what softened their hearts towards us, our father’s terrible death.’
‘How long ago did this happen?’
‘The year of the great mortality. His death was an omen.’
So his father had lived only a few years after Owen’s departure. He had guessed his father would go before his mother – Rhodri had little patience with Angharad’s efforts to fortify the family against illnesses, and had a quick temper. But so long ago. And in such a strange accident. ‘I have heard of such things happening, but to our father. Sweet Jesu.’
Morgan’s posture was oddly rigid, his back straight, his hands on his knees. ‘I do not like to think for what terrible sin he was so punished.’ He pressed his lips together in disapproval.
‘Morgan!’ Elen hissed.
Owen looked from Elen’s eyes, dark with distress, to his brother’s pinched expression. ‘Our father was a good man.’
‘A good man does not die by fire.’
‘I watched many good men die by fire and worse, Morgan.’
‘We all have hidden sins.’
Owen fought down angry words. ‘What of the others?’
‘Our mother saw my first two children. The second coming of the pestilence took her. Our brother Dafydd died of a fever. He had lost a leg – his wagon had fallen on him as he changed a wheel. Many said that had our mother been alive he might yet live. The barber hurried through his work and took no care with his patients. But God chooses our coming and our going.’ Morgan closed his eyes a moment.
Who was left? ‘Angie?’
Morgan looked straight into Owen’s eye, still showing no emotion. ‘Sweet Angie. She died giving birth to a stillborn child.’ The pale eyes blinked once. ‘I am sorry to give you so much sadness, but I do not think it is kinder in the end to tell the tale more slowly.’
Owen turned to stare out the window at the gentle rise that led to the house. ‘How long ago did Dafydd and Angie die?’ he whispered.
‘Dafydd a few years ago. Angie died six years ago.’
At least his mother had not outlived her children, which was said to be a mother’s curse. It gave Owen little comfort. Had he returned but three years ago he might have seen Dafydd, told him how often he thought of him. One thing was certain, Dafydd would have had little patience with Morgan.
As soon as courtesy allowed, Owen took his leave of his brother and Elen and rode back to Cydweli. Apprehensive he had been on his riding out; now he saw that his dread had not been inappropriate. What cruel gift was this to reunite him with the one member of his family he found it difficult to love, impossible to like? God tested him harshly. To hear of one death would have been difficult enough, but four, and one of them so terrible as his father’s. Owen’s stomach churned as he remembered Morgan’s suspicion,
for what terrible sin.
God help him, but he did not see how he could ever forgive his brother for those words.
Weary and heavy-hearted, Owen wished a good day to the guard at the south gate of the castle. He was rewarded with the news that Burley awaited him in the guesthouse hall. He knew better than to ask the constable’s purpose. Burley gave orders; he did not explain.
Geoffrey already sat with the constable, and from the droop of his eyelids and the ruddiness of his nose Owen guessed they had sat so for quite a while, shared several cups of wine or ale.
Burley rose at Owen’s approach and was surprisingly courteous, offering wine, asking after his brother, apologising for taking his time. His rough voice and abrupt phrases made it plain he found the courtesy unfamiliar and difficult. Owen wondered at his game. But he responded in kind, settled down on a chair and stretched his legs out to the fire burning smokily in the middle of the room, told them of his brother’s fine orchard, lovely wife, son who had Dafydd’s magnificent hair.
‘But you have not come to while away the time talking of my family,’ Owen said when he had told them all he cared to. ‘Are you here to talk of archers? The garrison?’
Burley wagged his head from side to side. ‘My plan was to recruit archers after you arrived. I can tell you that word has already spread among the young men in the March of Cydweli, and they are eager. We shall have no difficulty providing you with the number you require.’
‘I am glad of it.’
‘As for the garrison, I have encouraged Master Chaucer to move freely among the men, ask what he will, observe them at their stations. I have already provided him with numbers and watches.’
Geoffrey nodded, tapped a parchment beneath his elbow.
‘Of course you are also free to move among them,’ Burley added.
‘I thank you, Constable.’ Owen glanced from Geoffrey to Burley, felt a tension between them that had yet to be explained. ‘Well, then, you have completed your work without me,’ he said, pretending to rise.
‘Stay a moment,’ said Burley. ‘If you would,’ he added more softly. ‘There is one more item.’
‘Is there?’ Owen eased back in his chair, propped his feet on the bench opposite.
‘The death of John de Reine. What more can you tell me of the event? You say he was left at a gate to the cathedral close in St David’s. Did anyone see who left him? Where had he been? How had he died?’
‘No one had come forward to say they had seen him left there,’ Owen said. ‘There was a quantity of sand in Reine’s clothes. White sand. But when he had been on the beach, why, how he died, other than the knife wound in his gut––’ Owen shook his head. ‘I can tell you no more.’
‘Why was he in St David’s?’
‘We do not know. Nor did Bishop Houghton, so I would doubt he had yet been in the city.’
‘If not St David’s, where?’
‘I do not know. Perhaps in the hospice at Llandruidion if he went there as a pilgrim.’
‘He was to meet you in Carreg Cennen,’ Burley said. ‘Why should he suddenly embark on a pilgrimage instead?’
‘I did not know him,’ Owen said. ‘I had hoped you might know his heart.’
‘I was his commander, not his confessor,’ Burley said. He dropped his gaze to the table, shook his head, and said nothing for a while. Then with a sigh and another shake of the head he looked at Geoffrey, then Owen, and asked, ‘Was Whitesands his goal? Or Porth Clais? He did not take his man with him. Had he something to hide, did he await a ship?’
Owen wondered whether the constable’s purpose was to sow seeds of doubt about Reine, or whether he asked the question in innocence. ‘You suggest he was one of Owain Lawgoch’s supporters?’
‘It is possible, is it not?’
‘Being an Englishman, he is not likely to have supported Lawgoch,’ Geoffrey said. ‘What say you, Owen?’
‘I doubt it. What would be his purpose?’