Page 280 of The Daughters of Avalon
Her sister Seren was blessed with infinite patience and goodwill, but Rhiannon feared she was cursed with her mother’s darkness; what was more, she heartily embraced it.
Five long years of incarceration had made her more wrathful than ever—more so at herself for loving a man who’d kept her imprisoned.
Cael…
Oblivious to her state of mind, Jack and Marcella prattled on endlessly and Rhiannon couldn’t help herself. Squeezing her fist tight, she opened it suddenly, and her fury materialized in the palm of her hand, a tiny blue flame she longed to cast away to set the forest ablaze, damned be the consequences!
Oh, yes, she knew there was a price to be paid, and she accepted the Law of Three as truth. Still, anger was her constant companion…
If, for example, one had summoned a brume to aid one’s sister’s escape… perhaps five years of imprisonment would be one’s just reward.
And mayhap, rather than blame Cael for all her troubles, she should blame herself…
Closing her fist, she snuffed out the flame.
“Do you smell that?” asked Jack.
“What?”
“Smoke.”
“Nay,” said Marcella, although she turned to peer over her shoulder at Rhiannon, narrowing her shrewd green eyes.
Rhiannon smiled innocently and shrugged.
Chapter
Seventeen
The days blurred one into another…
Ride, eat, sleep, wake, listen to Marcella crow, ride, eat, sleep, wake, listen to Marcella crow…
Whatever her true allegiance, her opinion was clear asWaldglas: Marcella wasn’t impressed by the English, nor their usurper king. But what wasn’t precisely evident was where her loyalties lay—not with the Germans, neither with the French or the Normans, even despite that she’d spent so much of her adult life in Germany and then Normandy with Matilda.
At heart, she was perhaps a Welsh patriot, but that was not entirely evident either. She defended Matilda as well as the Church, and marveled that the marcher lords hadn’t found a way to depose all the shambolic Welsh kings.
She was, in truth, a bit of a riddle…
“Pride is their sin,” she said now, expounding on Stephen’s barons and specifically their choice of war mounts. “If you ask me, they are too concerned with appearances, not enough with practicality,” she said. “Destriers are a menace on the battlefield. Meanwhile, our coursers might not put the fear of God into a man, but neither will they madden over the scent of blood.Thatis whyhefell,” she said, speaking of King Stephen. “Not becausehe is ill-favored by God—that, and because he’s old and weak. Try putting a bit of horseflesh between your legs as an old man and see if you don’t find yourself with a gob full of muck as well.”
Apparently, the King had taken a tumble from his horse very recently—a few, in fact. The last time, he went face-first into the mire, causing a bevy of tongues to wag. He was “cursed,” so they’d said—abandoned by his God.
But really, how could he possibly win against the anointed son of a Holy Roman Empress! Duke Henry was the rightful heir, and furthermore, how was Stephen ever supposed to keep a discontented nation when he couldn’t even control his own son?
“I am only repeating what I heard,” said Jack, conversationally. “Though, in truth—at least to me—he seems ill-favored as any man can be.”
Marcella’s bark of laughter was acerbic. “Please!” she scoffed. “He stole his uncle’s throne, quite literally—stole England’s treasury, as well, and then forsook an oath to Matilda. Even so, that man kept his throne for nearly a full score years. If that is not good fortune, my young friend, I cannot say what is.”
Like her eldest sister, Elspeth, Marcella was clearly a loyalist for the Empress—prepared to defend the haughty woman at a moment’s notice. Sadly, Rhiannon hadn’t any love for the Would-be Queen. Half-sisters though they might be, in all their living years, Matilda had never once shown any of them any affection—not even Ellie.
Oh, yes, perhaps, in truth, she’d been kinder to Elspeth, once upon a day. But that was so long ago that Rhiannon doubted Elspeth would even remember what Matilda looked like at this very late date. Truly, that woman could be standing before them, grizzle-haired and full of chin hairs, and neither would recognize the other.
So far as Rhiannon was concerned, it didn’t matter to her who sat upon England’s throne, so long as they weren’t a poppet to Morwen—which, in fact, Stephen was.
True: He might be rethinking his alliances these days, but so long as Morwen kept his son’s ear, and so long as Eustace was still the heir apparent, her mother would rule through him. Rhiannon didn’t know Eustace well at all, but she knew enough about him to know that he was as weak of mind as he was of heart. But she was bored ofpolitiks, and she wasn’t moved to speak throughout their entire discourse. Kings, queens, emperors, empresses—they all shat the same, so far as Rhiannon was concerned. She wasn’t impressed with any overlord, no matter their affiliations.
In truth, she couldn’t bring herself to believe that, when push came to shove, their champions wouldn’t abandon them, as well. It was what Cael had done, after all.
