Daughter of Time (Prequel to The After Cilmeri Series)

Daughter of Time (Chapter Nine)

Meg

I stood at the washbasin and peered through a crack in the shutter, trying to get some sense of what it was like outside. Then someone knocked on the bedroom door.

"Come in," I said, and turned.

The door opened to reveal a short, lean woman, significantly older than I, her brown hair streaked with gray.

"You're ready to get up, then," she said in Welsh. As two different people—Llywelyn included—had prevented me from doing so earlier, I could hardly be blamed for staying in bed. She came into the room, her arms full of clothes. "My name is Angharad. The Prince asked that I help you while you're here."

Pleased that I'd understood all of her words, I nodded and then looked ruefully down at what I'd worn to bed. "I couldn't get out of these clothes last night so I'm a little worse for wear."

"It was a difficult day yesterday," Angharad said. "I'm sorry that I wasn't here to assist you when you arrived."

"Thank you for coming to help me now," I said. "I didn't expect it."

"Well, you should, a fine lady like you," Angharad said. "My husband is one of the Prince's men-at-arms but no longer rides with him," she said. "He serves as caretaker for the manor and I run the household."

"I don't know that I am such a fine lady. I'm sure you are very busy without having to worry about me."

"Never mind," Angharad said, waving her hand. "It's a pleasure to get out of the kitchen."

She tsk'ed over me, looking me up and down, and then noticed Anna. I'd allowed her to wander off with a maid earlier, but she'd come back, checking in with me as she always did, as if we shared an invisible cord that reeled her in every once in a while.

"What a beautiful child!" Angharad said. She came closer as Anna, who was standing on the bed and holding onto my arm, peered around me. "What is your name?"

"Anna dw i," Anna said.

I gaped at my daughter.

"She speaks very well," Angharad said, obviously pleased. "I'd heard that she didn't have any Welsh; that you spoke only the French language, but it's not true. She's very small to be speaking at all."

"Anna has just spoken her first words in Welsh." I said.

"Well, good for her," Angharad said.

"I speak only a little Welsh," I added, "though I understand more than I speak, provided you talk slowly."

"I will do my best," Angharad said, speaking much more slowly—over-exaggerating now, which wasn't really what I wanted either.

We muddled through, however and the rest of the morning was taken up with dressing and caring for Anna, eating breakfast, and a little exploration of the grounds. It had turned colder in the night and I didn't want to spend too much time out of doors without something more substantial for warmth. Like a parka.

The manor house was a two-story affair, surrounded by a wooden palisade. Goronwy said that it wouldn't stand up to a concerted assault, but would protect us for the time it took to organize a defense and give us walls for archers to hide behind. I didn't enter the long, low building that was the stables; Goronwy asked us to avoid it as he was keeping a prisoner, Dai, inside, though he'd allowed Humphrey de Bohun, as a nobleman, out. Anna and I were standing on the steps to the manor, in fact, when Llywelyn and Humphrey walked down them to meet Hywel, who led Dai and a horse across the courtyard, ready for release. At Llywelyn's nod, Hywel stepped behind Dai and severed his bonds with his belt knife.