A Moment in Time

Wynne turned her horse's head and rode serenely out of the courtyard, moving slowly down the castle hill. She knew the way to Cai, for the route was deceptively simple, although she had never before traveled that path. Nesta had told her about it during one of their conversations those long weeks back when she and Rhys were visiting at Raven's Rock. At the bottom of the castle hill the river ran swift, and, glancing up, Wynne looked to see if she was being observed, but to her relief she was not.

She trotted her mare across the stone bridge spanning the river. On the far side she turned right onto a narrow trail that moved around the base of the mountain and in the opposite direction from whence she had come to Raven's Rock from Gwernach over a year ago. Castle Cai was located around the other side of the mountain, Nesta had told her. It sat upon a promontory at the base of that mountain that jutted out over another valley. At least she would not have to climb her horse up another steep incline, Wynne thought, relieved.

The forest was thick with trees, and in some places the sun had a difficult time penetrating through the greenery. There were times that the trail she followed seemed to disappear, and yet Wynne felt no fear of her surroundings. High in the branches of a beech tree a bird sang, trilling notes of such clarity that it seemed almost unreal. When she came to a small stream that dashed over a bed of dark rocks, Wynne stopped her horse to rest and, dismounting, allowed her beast to drink. Tying the animal to a tree, she sat upon a bed of thick, soft moss and, taking a small flacon of wine from her saddlebag along with some bread and cheese, Wynne sat down to eat. She had been clever enough to obtain her picnic the previous evening after her supper. The servants thought she desired additional food to nibble on in her own quarters because of her condition.

She smiled to herself. Everyone at Raven's Rock was so good to her. Although she had always considered herself happy and content at Gwernach, she had never envisioned how absolutely blissful her life with Madoc would be. And it would all be better once she solved the estrangement between Madoc and Brys. She chewed her bread, noting that the cheese was her family's own. In the trees around her the birds sang, and several of them, curious, hovered on nearby branches. With a small chuckle Wynne crumbled the remainder of her bread and cheese and scattered it over the mossy ground for them. Arising, she relieved herself behind a thick stand of bushes. Then finding a nearby rock to use as a mounting block, she remounted her horse and, crossing the stream, continued on her way.

Another hour of gentle travel brought her around the other side of the mountain. The sun was now high in the late morning sky. The forest began to thin out and, ahead of her, Wynne saw Castle Cai. As Nesta had told her, it was perched on a rather narrow, high promontory that overlooked a misty blue valley. It was nothing like Raven's Rock. Rather it was a structure of greyish stone that seemed to cling precariously to the cliff upon which it stood. It was not large, yet it seemed very forbidding. A shiver took her, but Wynne brushed away her premonition and rode directly toward the castle. Reaching the lowered drawbridge, she hesitated a moment then moved across it. On the far side of the drawbridge she encountered a rather surly man-at-arms.

'Well?' he demanded. 'State your business! His grace ain't in the market for a new woman today.'

'I am the bishop's sister-in-law, the lady. Wynne of Raven's Rock,' she said in tart tones. 'Have someone escort me to his grace immediately!'

The command in her voice impressed the man-at-arms, and he called to a companion beyond his post. 'Here you, Will! This be his grace's sister-in-law come to see him. Help her off her horse and take her to him.'

'Have someone give my mare a measure of oats,' Wynne said. 'She has brought me a goodly distance this day. And have her ready for me when I depart in an hour or so.'

'Aye, lady,' came the grudging reply.

The man-at-arms called Will lifted Wynne from her horse and, without a word, turned and headed through the portcullis into the courtyard, which appeared quiet and empty. There was an unnatural silence about the place. She followed Will up a broad flight of stairs into the castle and down a dark corridor into the Great Hall.

'You can find his grace there,' Will said, pointing, and then he quickly disappeared.

The hall was not particularly large. It was smoky with poor ventilation, and dim from lack of windows. As Wynne focused her eyes, they grew wide with shock. In the middle of the room was a whipping post, and hanging from that post was some pour soul. Brys of Cai, informally attired in a pair of dark braies, his open-necked shirt hanging loose, began to ply a rather nasty-looking whip upon the bared back of his victim as Wynne stood horrified. A shriek tore through the hall, followed by another and another. Wynne, her heart pounding wildly, realized the offender was a woman.

'Brys!' she cried out. 'I beg you to stop!' Then Wynne advanced into the hall, that her brother-in-law might see her clearly. 'Whatever this poor woman has done, surely she does not deserve to be beaten so cruelly.' Reaching his side, Wynne put a restraining hand upon his arm.

'Wynne?' His eyes were slightly glazed, but then they cleared quickly. Tossing his whip aside, he demanded, 'Wynne of Powys, what are you doing here? Castle Cai is certainly the last place I ever expected to see you.' He took her arm and walked away from the whipping post, leading her up to the high board. 'Bring wine for the lady Wynne,' he called, and when she was settled he asked again, 'Why are you here?'

'I have come to ask you to cease this quarrel that has existed for far too long between you and your brother, Madoc. I am with child, Brys, and I want peace in our family.'

'Where is my brother? He certainly does not know you are here,' Brys of Cai said with certainty. A crafty look came and went in his sky-blue eyes.

'No,' Wynne admitted, 'he does not. Our neighbors to the north were stealing sheep in the pasturelands below Raven's Rock. Madoc went to deal with them. I thought it a good time to come to Castle Cai and speak with you.'

'I am surprised that you got here,' Brys said. 'Surely Madoc gave orders that you were to be carefully guarded. Yet somehow you have given your keepers the slip. I am quite impressed, belle soeur, by your cleverness.'

'Oh, Brys, do not spar with me,' Wynne told him irritably. 'What you attempted with Nesta as a child was horrendous, but you are grown now. I cannot believe that you are as terrible as Madoc and Nesta insist. You are a man of the Church, Brys. Can you not help me to end this breach between you, your sister and brother? Is that not the Christian way?'

'I am no man of God, Wynne,' Brys told her, amused. 'I bought this bishopric for the power it could give me. Oh, 'tis true, I had to take holy orders, but I did not study, nor am I a priest. It was simply a formality insisted upon by those who wanted my gold.' He chuckled. 'There is much you do not know about me, for I know that my brother would not have distressed you with the whole truth.'

'Do you not want to be reconciled with your family?' Wynne asked him.

He laughed bitterly. 'Why should I want to be, belle soeur? Madoc, the great sorcerer-prince of Wenwynwyn, and Nesta, my sweet little sister, who perhaps loves Madoc more than she ought. What can they offer me that I do not have? I have power, and I have wealth. What more is there, Wynne of Powys?'

'There is love, Brys,' Wynne said gently.

'Love?' He laughed again. 'I can buy love!'

'To merely couple with a woman is not love, Brys,' Wynne told him, shocked, ignoring his crude innuendo about Nesta.

'What else is a woman good for, belle soeur?' was the startling reply. 'A woman is for a man's pleasure, and if he so desires, for bearing his children, and cooking his food, and sewing his clothing. There is no more. That illusory emotion you call love does not exist, for I have never experienced it, and God knows I have certainly allowed myself to run the gamut of every emotion available to man.'

'Love most certainly exists!' Wynne cried. 'It exists between a mother and her children. Between a man and his wife. Between siblings, Brys! Surely you have some feelings of love for Nesta and Madoc. For too long have you been estranged, and it is wrong! Nesta is to bear her husband a child sometime near the feast of Christ's Mass. My babe will be born in the early spring. I cannot feel content in my heart if you will not rejoin with your family, that the children Nesta and I bear may know their uncle.'

'My God, you are so good!' he groaned. 'I am surprised that Madoc has not already died of a surfeit of your sweetness!' He flung his wine cup across the room. 'I have heard all I wish to hear, belle soeur. Allow me to return to the business at hand.' He stood and glanced toward the woman at the whipping post. 'The wench displeased me