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  Author’s Note

  After William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England in 1066, he lost no moment to institute and firmly enforce his own will upon the whole. First, all lands belonged to the crown. Its title and use would be granted only to faithful nobles who swore earnest fealty to him. At the same time these landholdings earned by the price of unswerving loyalty were governed by William’s own inflexible rules.

  William declared that if one of his barons attacked another, by that wrongful action the aggressor’s holdings were automatically held forfeit and reverted to the crown. During days of relative peace under Norman rule, this arrangement went far to minimize any danger of the sort of useless losses too often wreaked upon European lords by greed and petty quarrels among their number.

  After nearly a century of such firm control, came a comparatively brief era of less than a full score of years during which royal restraints were shattered …

  Three times before his death, the Conqueror’s youngest son, Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy, made his barons and bishops swear to accept his daughter, Empress Matilda (the young window of the Holy Roman Emperor), as ruler after him. Nonetheless, when he died in 1135, his nephew, Stephen of Blois, seized the English crown. By 1139, Matilda’s illegitimate half-brother, Earl Robert of Gloucester, had rallied the forces of the western barons on her behalf and with 140 knights accompanied her from Normandy to Arundel to launch an attempt to regain the throne for her.

  And thus began the period in English history known as the Anarchy. With the intermittent civil strife there was no clear leader in the land. Some nobles supported Matilda, others Stephen, and most used the conflict as an excuse for fighting amongst themselves for their own gain. Many vacillated between the two contenders, playing one against the other to win lucrative bribes of land and titles.

  As the conflict progressed, many landholdings had two claimants, one ceded the fief by Matilda, the other by Stephen, and all lands were held only by right of the personal power of their lords. Unless the local lord was unusually strong and fair, there was little peace in the countryside and the roads were no longer as safe as they had been in King Henry’s day. Bands of robbers roamed everywhere, taking what they could from the strife-ridden land.

  At long last came the invasion of Matilda’s son, Henry, and with the 1153 agreement struck between him and Stephen the prospect of an unchallenged succession returned and the peace was restored in England.

  Chapter 1

  WELSH BORDER, 1145

  “Aye, it can be done.” As Mabyn solemnly nodded, her abundant and unruly grey hair almost seemed to be a part of the thick smoke billowing up from the central firepit behind. “But for that deed there’s a price to be paid.”

  “Anything, Grandmother, anything.” Ceri’s silver-green gaze earnestly met others the same but infinitely more penetrating hue. Gran Mab’s piercing stare went far to reinforce her position as the area’s “wise woman,” respected yet feared for her ability to wield uncanny powers.

  “Tch, tch,” Mab muttered with a disapproval that filled her single-room cottage as surely as the thick haze which steadily rose from burning peat. The sharp wits of her sweet but far too vulnerable granddaughter were dulled by emotion for a wickedly handsome man, leaving her no more perceptive than Princess Angwen had been when issued a similar warning decades past. That it was a Norman earl who had been and was again the focus of admiration—first father, now son—only made their folly greater. Foolish, foolish maids.…

  “Please, Gran.” Ceri’s voice trailed off as she fell to nibbling a full lower lip in fear that the other’s reproving murmurs forewarned a refusal to grant the boon so anxiously besought. And she knew all too well that if not won now, the chance to secure her most fervently desired prize might never come again.

  It was true that Lord Tal visited the former princedom of Llechu in the Welsh hills each spring and each autumn but never before had there been reason for him to remain in the village of Dyffryn for so long. Near every year during the score that measured the length of her life, Ceri had closely watched him, their Norman lord, the earl of Westbourne.

  More than a decade her senior, Taliesan was not only devastatingly attractive with a potent smile and golden sparks of wry humor in his dark eyes but he was brave, strong, and tenderhearted. She knew the latter to be true for having seen him deal gently and generously with the elderly, the infirm, and the hoards of children who flocked to him whenever he appeared. With the passing of time, she, too, had come to idolize Taliesan, the hero to whom she had gladly if mutely surrendered her heart.

  Due to the gap between their stations in life—he a Norman lord and she a simple Welsh villager—in the normal way of things Ceri could never have expected more than perhaps to serve him a horn of ale welcoming his visit. There could be no remote hope for a closer or more personal relationship.

  Attention dropping to the earthen floor beneath her stool, Ceri inwardly reasserted the truth that she wished no ill upon either their lord or his knights. She honestly sorrowed for the one killed in the shocking assault that had left both Tal and his other guardsman wounded. Aye, ’twas a foul misdeed that had laid their Norman master in the next small cottage. Yet she could not rue the fact that by this wrong he would remain in their tiny village and under her grandmother’s healing care for leastways a few days more.

  Ceri was sincere in wishing only good fortune for Lord Taliesan. Though the battles being waged over the English throne were common knowledge, Llechu could not reasonably play any role in the outcome. Thus there was no rationale for the assault against Lord Tal within its borders. She would earnestly pray that such a vile event never reoccur even though the granting of that plea would also ensure there’d be no repetition of this precious opportunity for her to steal a taste of love’s sweet delights.

  “I cannot promise happiness for, although I mean to grant my too tender gosling her wish—” Mab stood, a dark silhouette against shifting patterns of smoke momentarily turned golden by a burst of flame, while her penetrating eyes bored into those of the much younger woman seated below. “’Tis an action I fear will lend you a deal more woe than joy.”

  Soft masses of dusky curls fell forward over slender shoulders as Ceri solemnly nodded acceptance of her grandmother’s caution. But nothing could prevent lips nibbled to berry-brightness from curling upward with joy for this gift no matter how reluctantly given.

  “For you will I cast a web of enchantment over our master,” Mab ruefully promised. “And by that spell ’tis you Lord Taliesan will view through the warm haze of love misted eyes.…”

  Ceri’s soft green gaze glowed with silver lights and, more than her slight smile, it was this clear evidence of anticipation which deepened Mab’s concern and brought a warning to her lips.

  “The strands of that web are fragile and will hold only so long as Lord Tal lingers within the sphere of my
powers.”

  Gone truly solemn, Ceri again nodded to her scowling grandmother. She had no choice but to accept this tight restriction on the promised time to be shared. The squires who had accompanied Lord Tal and his knights into Wales were already hastening toward Castle Westbourne carrying news of the dastardly assault. They would assuredly return in little more than a sennight, perhaps less, accompanied by additional guardsmen and the wagons necessary to safely transport their wounded lord and his injured knight home.

  The boundaries thus imposed on hours spent with her noble beloved were depressingly clear, yet Ceri bolstered her resolve to meet this new challenge. These limitations would indeed result in a lesser period of happiness for her, but she meant to welcome the gift with an earnest delight all the greater for its brevity.

  Determination firmed Mab’s lips as she gazed down on the seated maid gone motionless. She grieved for the distress Ceri would inevitably suffer in payment for seeking and receiving this boon. However, she had long believed the girl was too often lost in fantasies and thought that this might be the difficult lesson Ceri must learn. Mab’s decision to allow this painful encounter was further strengthened by her certainty that sorrow over a brief heartache would be far easier for the tender maid to endure were there limits to its potential for anguish. Princess Angwen’s experience was proof enough of that sad truth.

  Lifting a long stick fire-blacked on one end, Mab bent to stir the hearth’s bright coals into renewed flames, the better to revive a brisk bubbling of the pale green liquid in her cauldron. This determined action caused thick smoke to billow anew, and while Mab peered through the malodorous haze, she saw deep into the gentle mists of her own memory. There she beheld the faint image of a young Princess Angwen approaching to plead her cause.…

  That scene, now clear in her mind’s eye, had played out decades past while their Welsh prince lay dying. It was then that Angwen, his daughter, only child, and heiress, had been promised in marriage to William, the Norman earl of Westbourne. By that union their prince’s lands would be joined with the Norman border lord’s vast holdings.

  However, the princess had known that this alliance formed for the sake of her inheritance would provide no security for her future. Thus, before descending from the Welsh hills, Angwen had beseeched Mab for a spell of enchantment able to hold the earl in her thrall … at least long enough to produce the male heirs whose birth would guarantee her a preeminent position in the Norman’s castle.

  In response, Mab had given the princess a small leather sack containing tiny seeds (one to be placed in the earl’s food each day) along with the warning of a “price to be paid” once they were gone. It was clear that Angwen had assumed the last of the seeds merely signaled an end to her hold over the earl. Foolish, foolish maid.

  Unfortunately it was equally plain to Mab that her granddaughter understood the warning no more clearly than had Angwen. Clicking her tongue in mild disgust, she announced, “Once beyond the ancient borders of Llechu, your hero will have no memory of you or your time together in yonder cottage.”

  Ceri couldn’t fail to recognize Mab’s clipped emphasis on the term hero as disdain for the subject of her affections. She loved her grandmother and was loath to disappoint the woman who was also the only mother she had ever known since the woman who’d given her life (one of Mab’s twin daughters) had died in performing that deed.

  Having been nearly the sole recipient of all Mab’s doting attention for almost two decades, Ceri knew that her grandmother would never consider any man a mate worthy of her, leaving it impossible for her to make a choice the older woman would find pleasing or even remotely acceptable.

  Ceri had initially wasted little care on the matter since she had no interest in any of the Welsh males that she knew. Their fear of her grandmother’s uncanny abilities had long ago established an invisible wall around Ceri, and their foolish fear left them less than admirable in her eyes. Only Lord Tal had inspired Ceri to dream of love. Only the Norman earl who could never, would never be hers save for that promised touch of Gran Mab’s magic.

  By watching the light of resolve chase shadows across Ceri’s remarkably expressive face, Mab could almost read the maid’s thoughts.

  “Humph,” Mab faintly muttered dissatisfaction with her gosling’s unwise infatuation as, in a signal of her plans, she bent to hoist and shoulder a heavy satchel. The sturdy homespun bag was filled with mysterious potions and ointments along with packets holding many of the secret ingredients needful to brew other remedies or wield the arcane arts.

  “I go to treat the injuries of our noble guests,” Mab flatly announced her intentions. “But upon my return ’tis you who will go to watch over and tend their needs. So, bind your hair and await prepared to undertake that task.”

  * * *

  Softened by the hazy edges of a dream, the bright spring dawn seemed to hold a gentle promise of joys to come. Birds sang from the green shadows of dense woodland on either side of a path down which three hunters urged their mounts.

  Abruptly—yet with the unnaturally slow motion of a nightmare—the morn’s brisk air was sliced by a brief, deadly rain of arrows.

  Reacting with strange sluggishness, Tal glanced toward his companions in time to see Cedric slump and slide lifeless from his horse. Then, above the thudding of his heart, he heard Alan’s anguished cry even as searing pain struck his own thigh.

  Tal ignored the shaft protruding from his leg and the well of blood oozing up about its buried, razor-sharp tip. Twisting around, he gazed back over his shoulder and realized that while he and his knights had been targeted, their young squires remained unharmed. Riding some distance behind, the youths whipped their horses forward even as the forest’s gloom closed in on Tal whose dark lashes fell to suddenly pale cheeks as he plummeted from his destrier.…

  An unmeasured time passed while Tal valiantly fought his way up through thick, formless mists toward a distant brightness that beckoned like daylight at the portal of one of the many dark caverns he’d explored as a child. Tal struggled against unnatural lethargy, trying to force heavy eyelids to rise despite the leaden weight that seemed to have sealed them closed.

  Was he to be eternally caught in this peculiar dream of pleasant joys shattered by pain and betrayal? Even memories of the dream assault left a bitter taste of gall on Tal’s tongue. Writhing, he cried out against the vile fantasy.

  Then a delightful sense of well-being gently flooded through Tal. Had he truly died during some vile and inexplicable assault in the midst of his own lands? Was he lying safe on celestial shores? Had the acrid gloom of that wretched deed been banished by the sunshine of heaven?

  While gently brushing a lock of black hair from a burning brow delicate fingers attempted to soothe the furrows of distress away. Ceri gasped on unexpectedly meeting a bold pair of brown velvet eyes at so close a range for the first time.

  Speak you fool, Ceri berated herself for going mute and forced a smile despite the fact that she couldn’t think of a plausible subject or even a single intelligible word to say. She had only just taken her grandmother’s place to care for these wounded warriors and was disgusted to find herself woefully ill-prepared for this potent personal contact.

  This visual impact was even more devastating than the discovery that years of assisting her grandmother in treating wounds and ailments had done nothing to inure her against the shock of being alone with the incredible Norman lord. Aye, although it was common practice to sleep in the nude, this situation putting her in seeming intimacy with the stunning man only haphazardly covered by a bedfur was vastly different.

  Tal gazed up into what he’d no doubt was the bright source of sweet peace—gentle green eyes that glowed with amazing silver lights from the face of a delicate, dark-haired beauty. Clearly here was an angel, confirmation that indeed this must be heaven. Not until he turned his head and shifted attention to their surroundings did a stabbing pain strike to cloud his initial certainty with doubt.

  Ha
dn’t the priests promised that in paradise all God’s saved children would dwell in grand palaces? This small, dark hut filled with the thick smoke and pungent odor of a peat fire wasn’t even a fine home, far less a palace.…

  With that acknowledgment came acceptance of the unpleasant fact that the assault responsible for laying him here had been not a bleak dream but a far gloomier and even less comprehensible reality.

  Tal’s glance returned to the dark angel. She remained and again offered a smile of uncommon sweetness. Aye, an angel she was, Tal reassured himself as he slid back into the comforting clouds of slumber’s drifting mists.

  Gazing enthralled at the focus of so many fantasies now near, Ceri’s emotions tumbled in wild chaos. Her pulses still leaped from the stunning power of their visual contact while shame for her muteness battled with relief for this reprieve to regain her composure. She must muster her resources to stand better prepared when next he awoke … assuming he would return to consciousness soon.

  A sudden and cheerless realization struck Ceri. Gran Mab had promised that her potion would see the knight on the pallet near the door remain lost in healing sleep until he again rested in Castle Westbourne, but she had failed to promise that no such limitations would bedevil Prince Tal.

  * * *

  Shielded by the shadows in Castle Westbourne’s deserted stables, two men confronted each other. One was tall and thickly built, the other much shorter and so painfully thin that they were not easily recognized as brothers.

  “I want no part of your intrigues,” Sir Ulrich coldly stated in a tone so sharp it would cut any but the toughest of hides … like the thick skin which made his brother Simeon impervious to even the most vicious verbal jabs.

  “Your loyalty is commendable, brother.” Simeon’s words dripped with an insincerity curdled by the acid of sarcasm.

  “Already have I given you my decision,” the larger and older brother sternly reminded the younger. With this statement Ulrich moved a step forward, an action calculated to intimidate the other as easily as he had for decades.