Warrior Princess Read online

“No, I suppose not. But we both know the truth, don’t we.”

  “As you say, my lady princess.”

  A look passed between them, and Branwen laughed. She was pleased to see the ghost-smile flicker again on Hild’s lips.

  What a place Doeth Palas was! The only person with whom she could behave naturally was an old Saxon servant woman!

  By all the saints, I hope the folk down in Gwent are not like this! I will go out of my mind!

  “May I dress your hair now, my lady princess?” Hild asked.

  “What happens if I say no?”

  “I think you know what will happen, my lady princess,” Hild said quietly.

  “You’ll be chastised, and I’ll be laughed at.”

  “Very likely, my lady princess.”

  Branwen picked up the silver mirror off the floor. She stared at her reflection. “This is me,” she said. “This is who I like being.” She glanced at Hild. “Listen, cut as little as possible, and try not to pull. But I don’t want to have my hair up. It looks stupid, and it feels uncomfortable with all those combs and pins in it.” She frowned. “What’s the least you can do so neither of us gets into trouble?”

  Hild thought for a moment. “I could weave two braids, one at each side of your forehead,” she suggested. “They could be drawn back and held behind with a ribbon of silk. That will keep the hair off your face…and I could tie some garnets into the braids. That will make you look very pretty, my lady princess.”

  “And will it be enough to keep you out of trouble?” Branwen checked.

  “I believe so, my lady princess.”

  “And me from being laughed at?”

  “Oh, most certainly, my lady princess.”

  Branwen smiled. “Then go to it.” She rested the mirror in her lap, already tired of looking at herself.

  Hild approached her, holding up the iron shears, and Branwen gritted her teeth as more thick coils of her hair fell about her onto the floor.

  Branwen was in the bedchamber, kneeling in front of her chest, picking out a few precious things to attach to the waistband of her gown. Here, far from home, those small possessions meant more to her than ever.

  She clutched the white crystal stones, remembering how Geraint had returned from a hunt in the mountains, a deer over his shoulders and the crystals in his fist. I thought you would like them. His eyes had twinkled with mischief. I think the gwyllion left them for me to find. If you hold them to the light, you can see all the colors of the rainbow! “There are no such things as gwyllion,” she had responded, “but thank you, they’re lovely. I’ll cherish them always.”

  Branwen winced. Could she not even remember joy now without feeling pain?

  “There is an earring missing!” Romney’s voice burst into her memories. “It’s been stolen!”

  Branwen looked around. Romney’s eyes were gleaming with malice as she glared at Hild and Aelf. “One of you has taken it!”

  “No, no, my lady princess,” murmured Hild. “Let me look for it for you. It must have fallen from the shelf.”

  “What’s the point in looking for it when I know you stole it from me?” Romney snapped, her face twisted with anger.

  “But we haven’t taken it, my lady princess,” wailed Aelf.

  “You are a liar! You’re both liars!”

  Branwen noticed something glinting on the floor beside Romney’s mattress. She got up, crossed the chamber, and picked it up. It was a golden earring. She grabbed Romney’s wrist and turned her hand over, dropping the piece of jewelry into her open palm.

  “Perhaps you should search more carefully before you start accusing people of theft,” she said, releasing Romney’s hand and going back to her chest.

  She was very aware of the way Romney glared at her with hate-filled eyes. She didn’t care. She was not prepared to stand by and allow those two old women to be bullied and terrified just to please the spiteful princess.

  “Get out! Get out!” Romney shrieked at the two women.

  As they left, Branwen looked up and saw the gratitude in Hild’s eyes.

  “Making friends with servants now, are you?” hissed Romney. “Why am I not surprised by that?”

  “Oh, be quiet.” Branwen sighed.

  I detest this place, and I’m trapped here for the next four days! she thought with an inward groan. I shall go mad!

  It was midmorning. Branwen, Meredith, and Romney were in their bedchamber, seated on wooden chests covered by soft furs. The tutor stood in front of them. He was an elderly man with weak, red-rimmed eyes, hair like cobwebs, and a draggled, gray mustache, thin as a rat’s whiskers.

  Branwen was doing her best to pay attention, but inside she was almost screaming with boredom.

  “And now let us come to the kith and kin of your great-grandsire on your mother’s lineage,” the old man droned. “Anarawd the Nine-Fingered was wed to Llywarch of Bryn Dathyl in Arfon. And of their loins came Iwai Foel and Iago and Idwan Ieuaf and Meurig Cat-Claw. And Meurig Cat-Claw was betrothed to Diflas ap Tywi, who was the brother of Gilla Stag-leg, who was captured by the savage Saxons and strangled at Chester….”

  Outside, the sun was high in a cloudless sky. In here the air was thick and stifling, and it was all Branwen could do to stop herself from nodding off.

  Her thoughts drifted away from the old man’s whining voice. She was in the forest with Geraint. Sunshine poured down as thick as honey through the bright spring leaves that formed a swaying roof above her head. She was running as fast as she could, ignoring the branches that lashed her cheeks. Geraint was chasing her, blundering through the undergrowth like a hornet-bitten ox.

  It was pure joy to run deer-swift through the trees, only just outdistancing Geraint’s clutching hand. Joy turned to screaming laughter when she let him catch her and they both tumbled to the ground, rolling over and over until they lay panting and exhausted, staring up through the wind-whisked leaves, black against the burning blue sky.

  “Princess Branwen!”

  A voice broke her daydream like a stone thrown into water.

  She looked at the tutor. “Yes?”

  “You are not paying attention, Princess,” he said testily. “You will learn nothing if you do not pay attention.”

  “These people you’re talking about,” Branwen said. “I don’t know them. They’re not part of my family.”

  “They are part of the history of Powys, Princess Branwen,” said the tutor. “But if you would rather we give over part of today’s lesson to the history of your own kin, then I will allow it.” He made a rising gesture with one hand, as if wanting her to stand. “Please recite for us the lineage of the House of Rhys, following the male line.”

  “I don’t think they teach such things in the east,” Romney put in. “But I daresay Branwen can tell us all about the Shining Ones if you ask her.”

  Branwen ignored the mean-hearted laughter that came from both princesses. “My father is Prince Griffith ap Wynn,” she said. “His father was Prince Wynn ap Mabon. His father was Prince Mabon ap…ap…” She paused, frowning as the name of her great-grandfather went flitting away over her memory’s horizon.

  “What did I tell you?” Romney smirked.

  “I see that your tutoring has been lax, Princess Branwen,” the old man remarked.

  “I can revere my ancestors and be a credit to the House of Rhys without the need to recite their names,” Branwen said with a flash of anger. “My mother and father taught me that I would do honor enough to my forebears by being loving and courageous and openhearted and dutiful.” Now that she had started, it was impossible to stop. “They taught me to welcome friends and strangers alike into our home and to treat them with kindness and respect, whether they were the lowliest bondsman or King Cynon himself. And that is more than can be said of this place, where I have been mocked and humiliated and called a barbarian.”

  Her outburst had reduced the princesses to wide-eyed silence. Let them stare! What did she care? Summoning all her dignity, she t
urned and walked from the room, striding across the floor of the Great Hall and stepping out into a day of glorious sunshine.

  18

  THE WESTERN OCEAN!

  Branwen sat on the northern rampart of Doeth Palas, leaning forward to gaze at the blue green ocean. She looked down between her feet—far, far down beyond the place where the stone ramparts were anchored to the cliffs, down and down to where the sea came gliding in with white-foamed lips that kissed the dark rocks before dying. The breeze carried a strange new tang up to her. It made her eyes smart and raised the hairs on her arms and legs.

  White birds were wheeling across the stark cliffs, crying out in high, keening voices, singing a song that Branwen found both thrilling and lonely. And rumbling away beneath the shrill voices of the seagulls was the constant pulse of the restless ocean—the sound she had heard last night: the throbbing rhythm of the world’s blood.

  She wished she were a gull. She wished she could launch herself from this lofty place and open her arms like wings and go swooping and soaring away over that vast stretch of water.

  “Fool!” she murmured to herself. “If you have to make wishes, then wish for something possible. Wish for a quick end to your stay here.”

  She had calmed down now, but she did not regret her anger. Maybe they were right. Maybe she didn’t behave the way a proper princess should behave. Was that so very bad, when the alternative was…what? To be like Lady Elain and her daughters?

  Branwen wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy. But what if Hywel’s family refused to allow her to hunt and to ride alone into the forests? What if they insisted she idle away the mornings having her hair styled and bejeweled? Shuddering, she lifted her hand and brought it down with a fierce slap on the outer edge of the wall. There’s no way she would live like that!

  One of the stones in the lip of the wall moved under her hand. She picked at the joints between the stones, taking out shards and splinters of mortar until the small wedge of stone moved freely. She used the heel of her hand to edge the stone forward, meaning to prize it out and toss it down the rampart and watch as it disappeared into the foaming waves.

  She smiled. If she stayed here long enough, perhaps she would have time to dismantle this whole fortress and send it tumbling into the ocean.

  Then she saw that there was something engraved on the inner face of the stone. Intrigued, she dug her nails in on both sides and carefully pulled it out. The stone was very heavy, smooth and white and flawless, and on one side someone had carved an intricate picture.

  Branwen ran her fingers over the carving. This must be an old Roman stone. She had been told that the Romans were skilled artists and that they could carve statues of stone that were so realistic it was amazing that they did not come alive.

  The piece of stone was no larger than her two spread hands, but the scene on it, broken away at both sides, was perfectly detailed. A woman in a long gown sat astride a horse, half turned in the saddle, staring out of the carving and pointing behind her toward a patch of woodland. Every leaf of every tree had been carved, every blade of grass, every muscle and sinew of the horse’s body, every hair on the woman’s head.

  A bird was perched on the woman’s outstretched wrist.

  Branwen held the stone up closer to her eyes. Surely that tiny carved bird was a…

  Caw!

  The sound was so close that it made Branwen jump. The white stone tipped forward out of her hands.

  “No!” She watched helplessly as the stone plunged downward, striking the foot of the rampart, bouncing wide, spinning as it dropped into the sea. “No!”

  Caw!

  She twisted her head to look at the falcon, standing defiantly on the stones at her side.

  “Look what you made me do.”

  The bird edged closer and pecked at her wrist.

  She pulled her arm away. “Ow! Don’t do that.”

  Caw! Caw!

  The falcon stepped back from her, spreading its wings and bobbing its head. “What do you want from me?”

  The bird lowered its head, ruffling its neck feathers.

  “I see the barbarian princess has found a new friend!” said a familiar voice at her back.

  The bird sprang into the air and floated feather-light on wide wings down the ramparts.

  Branwen stared up at Iwan. He was standing a little way off, his arms folded, an amused expression on his face. A twinge of lingering attraction distracted her for a moment, but then she remembered how he had duped her and her eyes narrowed in dislike.

  “I heard some of the men talking about the way you took a wild falcon on your wrist on the way here,” he said. “Is that the same bird?”

  Branwen got to her feet. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same question. I heard that you were having lessons with the princesses.”

  “You seem to hear a lot.”

  “Do you like them?” he asked, tilting his head. “Meredith and Romney?”

  “Very much so,” Branwen said. “I aspire only to be as wise and sophisticated as the children of Prince Llew and Lady Elain.”

  He grinned. “And swallows will fly to the moon to drink buttermilk!”

  She stared at him, intrigued that he should use that particular image. “Why did you say that?”

  He shrugged. “It seemed unlikely that someone like you would wish to become more like the princesses. I would have expected you to despise them both.”

  “Then you would have expected wrongly, Iwan,” Branwen said. “The art of despising people is not one I have grown up to practice.”

  “And what have you been taught, my lady?” Iwan asked. “To dispute with passing birds?” The smile widened. “Do birds converse with people in Cyffin Tir?”

  “No, they don’t.” She got up and walked quickly down the stone steps that led from the parapet of the ramparts. “Neither do they speak to vermin!”

  She heard him laughing, but she refused to look back.

  19

  “YOU HAVE GONE too far now, Branwen. I have tried to be understanding, but your behavior toward Reece ap Colwyn was outrageous. Why did you take it upon yourself to leave his lesson without permission?”

  “He made impertinent remarks about my mother and father,” Branwen said.

  “I doubt very much whether a learned man such as Reece ap Colwyn would have done anything of the kind….”

  “He said my mother and father had brought me up in ignorance of my heritage!”

  “Please do not raise your voice to me, Branwen. I thought we had an understanding, but you continue to prove both disruptive and difficult. Your father and mother would be ashamed of you!”

  Branwen felt her face burning. “They would understand,” she said between gritted teeth.

  Lady Elain threw her hands up. “I do not know what to do with you, Branwen! I would never have expected such…such waywardness in a princess of Powys. You are beyond me!”

  Branwen lifted her chin, her voice shaking with emotion. She could hold her true feelings in no longer. “I will not be spoken to like this, my lady,” she said. “I have done nothing wrong.”

  “So be it,” Lady Elain snapped. “I have tried to help you, Branwen, but you will not be helped. Then it shall be the task of another to make something of you. I wash my hands of you. Until you leave for Gwent I want nothing more to do with you, Branwen ap Griffith. Do as you will!”

  Branwen sat on the floor in the bedchamber, her traveling chest open in front of her. She was still shaking from her encounter with Lady Elain, and she was desperate to make physical contact with something that would soothe her heart. She pushed her gowns and shifts aside and came to her hunting clothes—her worn and stained marten-skin jerkin and her leggings and boots. Her slingshot lay with them, along with the pouch of stones. She upended the pouch and let the stones fall into her palm.

  She spilled the stones from hand to hand, comforted by their smooth feel and by the hard clicking as they tumbled toge
ther. She had gathered these stones on the hills of Cyffin Tir. They made her ache for home and for the love of her mother and father. With a sigh, she poured them back into the pouch.

  “You have Calculi stones!”

  She looked over her shoulder. Meredith was watching her from the doorway.

  “They’re not…what did you call them?” Branwen said, closing the pouch and laying it back in the chest.

  “Calculi stones. They look just like Calculi stones.” Meredith walked over to one of her chests and opened it. She rummaged for a few moments and then drew out a square wooden board marked out with engraved lines. She also took out a small leather pouch. She untied it and spilled out twenty or more stones, half of them black, half white.

  “This is a Calculi board, and these are the soldier stones.” She looked at Branwen. “Don’t people play Calculi where you come from?”

  Branwen shook her head. “We play knucklebones. And checkers and lucky sixes. And the men play dice and Terni Lapilii, although my father doesn’t approve because sometimes there are fights. But I’ve never heard of Calculi.”

  “I could teach it to you, if you like,” Meredith said guardedly. “And you could teach me the game your stones are used for.”

  There seemed to be a genuine hint of friendliness in her voice, but Branwen was wary.

  “They’re not for a game,” she told Meredith. “They’re for my slingshot. I use them in hunting.”

  “Oh.” Meredith blinked at her. “We are not allowed to hunt. Are you good at it?”

  “Yes, I am. I feel most alive when I’m in the forest. It makes me feel that I’m part of something age-old and neverending and…and magnificent.” Branwen knew that her explanation was hopelessly inadequate.

  Meredith shook her head. “I don’t understand you, Branwen.”

  “No, I don’t expect you do.” Branwen attempted a smile. “So, Calculi? I warn you, I’m not good with complicated games.”

  “Oh, it’s really simple,” Meredith said, coming over and kneeling at Branwen’s side. “There are two players. One takes the black stones, the other the white. The point of the game is to line up five soldier stones in a row, either sideways or diagonally. But it’s illegal to make a double-ended three, because…”