A Moment in Time

even harbor a small tender emotion for Caitlin and Dilys. I loved my parents, and I love Einion, who has watched over me since I was an infant. I even have an affection for a large raven I call old Dhu, but what I feel for these good souls is not what you would have me feel for you, I sense. Having never felt that particular elusive emotion, Madoc of Powys, I do not even know if I am capable of it. Besides, is that emotion we call love real?

'It seems a dangerous thing to me to entrust one's heart and being to another. Circumstances change as life passes, and what was certainty yesterday may not be tomorrow. To love, I think, means you must have certitude and faith in another. You must rely totally upon them. I do not know if I dare allow myself the luxury of what you call love.'

'You tell me you have never loved a man, dearling, and yet you speak as a woman of experience who has been deeply hurt by another,' he replied.

'Do I?' Wynne look genuinely surprised. 'How strange,' she told him, 'yet I have told you the truth, and I have felt this way from my earliest years.'

'Perhaps in another time and place,' he said casually, 'you gained this sad knowledge that has lingered on to plague you in this time and this place.'

She nodded slowly. 'Perhaps,' she agreed.

Madoc found it interesting that she did not discount his words, and he wondered if she understood the theory of reincarnation. It was a wisdom as old as time itself; understood and believed by their Celtic ancestors, and once even taught by the Christian faith. It was a simple doctrine, and the sacrifice of the Christ had made it even clearer to those who believed.

The immortal soul, a gift from the Creator, would be reborn again and again in human form as it struggled to purify itself. The human soul, like an uncut gemstone in its earliest stage, constantly working to cut and polish itself to perfection that one day it might move on to the next plane of spiritual existence. The Church had ceased teaching reincarnation many centuries before. The early mass of the faithful were simple people who misunderstood the doctrine. For them reincarnation was an excuse to indulge their vices with the reassurance that they would return to repent those sins in another life. As this was not the purpose intended, the Church simply ceased the teaching of higher spiritual attainment; but the knowledge constituted an integral part of many other faiths.

Madoc was a Celt in his heart and soul. He knew that Wynne's reluctance to wed stemmed from another life. It certainly had not come from anything that she encountered in this time and place, but he knew from where it did come. It was a problem that she must work out for herself. He could do nothing to help her. He could love her and he could reassure her. Perhaps in time she would be content. Or perhaps she would remember. Though he welcomed that possibility, he also feared it.

'When your sisters are wed,' he told her, 'we will return to Raven's Rock. There we will come to know one another. Mayhap you will even learn to love me. Come Beltaine next I will take you for my wife, Wynne of Gwernach.'

'Will you learn to love me, Madoc?' she asked him.

'I think I already do, dearling. Do not forget that I have known you since your infancy.'

'How is that possible, my lord? I but became cognizant of you three months ago! Are you a flatterer then?'

'In time,' he promised her, 'you will know everything, Wynne, but much of it you will have to learn for yourself. I shall only tell you part, and then only when the moment is right.'

She laughed. 'You speak in riddles, my lord of Powys, but at least you are not pompous or dull.'

Madoc plucked a late-blooming damask rose from its hedge and tucked it in Wynne's thick, dark braid. 'Am I so transparent then, dearling, that you see through me?' he teased her, smiling.

'I am not sure I see the real you at all, my lord,' she replied wisely.

He chuckled. 'It is an advantage I shall savor for now, my dearling, for it is not an advantage a man is able to keep on longer acquaintance with the lady of his heart.'

Wynne burst out laughing. 'Why, my lord, I would almost feel pity for you, did I not know better.'

'I shall have no mercy from you, lady, I can see that,' he said.

'None,' she cheerfully agreed, surprised that she was beginning to like this man.

Caitlin and Dilys did not appear at the evening meal, sending word that they needed their beauty rest before the exhausting festivities of their wedding.

'I should understand better,' muttered Enid, 'had they accepted any responsibility for the preparations involved in these weddings, but they have not. They have spent hours soaking themselves in the oak tub and creaming themselves until they must surely be as slippery as eels.'

'Come, Grandmother,' Dewi said, his blue eyes twinkling devilishly, 'would you really want Caitlin and Dilys helping you? We have all been far better off without them. I for one am grateful for their absence.'

'Dewi!' Wynne chided him. 'What will the prince and the lady Nesta think of you that you show such lack of filial love for your sisters?'

'There are some siblings,' Nesta said quietly, 'who are not easy, nay, they are impossible to love. We cannot love a relation simply because he or she is a relation, I fear.'

'You see!' Dewi crowed. 'The lady Nesta understands even if you do not, Wynne.'

'What I see is that the lady Nesta has better manners than the lord of Gwernach, brother. She puts you at your ease, but you make us all uncomfortable.'

Dewi quickly understood his elder and, with a blush, he said, 'Your pardon, my lord and my ladies.'

The next two days passed quickly, and Gwernach was in a fair uproar with preparations for the weddings. Dewi had declared a holiday in honor of the two brides, and his serfs would be excused from the fields that day, although the cows must be milked twice daily no matter the festivities. It was hoped the day would be fair, as the celebration was planned for outdoors. Although they had no family left and few near neighbors, for Gwernach's lands were vast, Rhys would travel with his great troop of men, and the bridegrooms would certainly bring some relations with them, but no word was received from Rhys until he and his party were but an hour's ride from Gwernach.

Wynne scanned the missive. 'The lords of Coed and Llyn bring their widowed mothers, and there is at least one sister in the group, although Rhys does not say whose.'

'There are beds stored in the cow barn nearest the house,' Enid remembered. 'I'll send some men to fetch them, and we will set them up in the solar.' She turned on Caitlin and Dilys, who were creaming each other's hands. 'There are hangings and mattresses stored in the trunks in the nook at the end of the hall. Fetch them and make up the beds for our guests.'

'But we will ruin our hands,' whined Dilys.

'If you do not do it,' their grandmother said, 'it will not get done. Do you think the mothers of these men will let you wed them if you cannot even be bothered to make them comfortable? But if you prefer to remain here, old maids, I will not stop you.'

Without another word of protest, Caitlin and Dilys arose from their place and hurried off to do her bidding. Enid smiled archly.

Rhys and his party arrived, and when finally the horses had been stabled and everyone brought into the hall, the introductions were made between all parties.

Arthwr of Coed was a lanky man with a large Adam's apple. His stringy hair was nondescript in color, and his eyes, which peered intently, a pale shade Wynne could not put color to, try though she did. He grinned, pleased, showing bad teeth, when presented to Caitlin, grabbing her and placing a wet, noisy kiss upon her perfect cheek.

'By the rood, cousin,' he said to Rhys as if Caitlin were not even there, 'this is a pretty pigeon you've placed in my nest! Right gladly will I fill her belly with my seed.' His arm was tight about Caitlin's waist, and he did not look as if he would soon release her.

Caitlin flushed, an angry look springing into her eyes, but before she might vent her outrage, her husband-to-be was introducing her to an enormously large woman whose tiny eyes were almost lost in the folds of fat that made