A Moment in Time

But she could not stop at first. 'I… I… I want to go home!' she sobbed.

'You are home, my sweeting, and I will keep you safe so that you need never be frightened or in danger again. This Madoc did not care for you well,' the thegn said, and there was disapproval in his voice. 'I will allow no harm to come to you, Wynne. You and your child will be safe with me.' His blue eyes looked down upon her, and she saw the determination in them to do precisely what he said he would do. This was a strong man.

'My babe!' she said, and her hands flew to her belly.

'He is safe,' Eadwine said with assurance. 'In another few weeks I must leave you in peace for the child's sake, but for a short time we may enjoy one another.' He caressed her dark hair. 'You have hair the color of a raven's wing,' he said. 'It is so different from our yellow-haired Saxon women.' Then he smiled down at her arid she saw that his teeth were quite good. He was a handsome man.

'You are not a bad man, I think,' Wynne told him.

The smile broadened. 'No,' he answered her. 'I am not a bad man.'

'You are a determined man, however,' she said, and he chuckled. 'I am a determined woman,' Wynne told him.

'Then we are most admirably suited to one another, aren't we, my wild Welsh girl?' He kissed her mouth with a hard, quick kiss. 'You make me feel like a stripling again, Wynne. I want to begin anew! I am sick unto death of my old life and all that comes with it. I want a new life, and I want you to be the centerpiece of that new life.'

'What of your family?' she asked him. 'Can you so easily cast them off, for that is, I suspect, what you desire to do.'

'Caddaric and his women,' grumbled the thegn. 'Pah! They make me sick! My eldest son is a good fighter but a bad man, and I do not know how he got that way except perhaps my late wife, God assoil her soul, was too soft with him. Still, Mildraed was a good woman, and I cannot hold her responsible for the lad. My grandfather was very much like Caddaric. A hard, cruel man. Perhaps it is just as well he can whelp no pups.'

'And Baldhere, my lord?' Wynne inquired.

'He will inherit his father-in-law's estates, although Aeldra casts eyes upon Aelfdene as well. Baldhere's wife is a greedy woman. How it would please me to get a son on you, my wild Welsh girl! A son of your body could inherit if I so desired it,' Eadwine Aethelhard said. 'Such a decision on my part could cause Caddaric to suffocate on his own choler, although Baldhere could find the entire thing amusing. He is basically a simple man with little ambition, although, like his elder brother, he too is a good soldier. He became one in order to survive his childhood with Caddaric.' Eadwine chuckled.

Wynne giggled. She simply could not help it.

'Now there's a nice sound,' the thegn said.

'It does not mean that I forgive you for forcing me,' Wynne told him. 'How could you? We don't even know one another.'

Eadwine's eyes grew serious. 'I wanted you,' he said. 'From the moment I set eyes on you, I wanted you. For now, I know that your heart and your mind resist me, Wynne. Your lovely, ripening body, however, does not. That will not always be enough for me, my sweeting, but for now I am satisfied. We will come to care for one another as the months pass, I promise you. And after you have borne your child, I will take you for my wife and free you from your slavery.'

Wynne shook her head sadly. 'As long as Madoc of Powys lives, Eadwine Aethelhard, I can never be your wife, for I am his wife. This is a Christian land, my lord, and your sons have married their wives in the Holy Church despite the lesser women that they keep in the manner of the old ways. I cannot in good conscience wed anyone, for I am already wed. I have been kidnapped from my husband and my home, to be sold into slavery, but that cannot change the fact that I am a married woman. You may take my body, and you may arouse my passions, but I am still Madoc's wife.'

'Yet he thinks you dead, you tell me,' Eadwine countered.

'No, Brys of Cai has conspired to make Madoc believe that I am dead, but Madoc loves me. We are bound together through time and space. He will know that I yet live. He will seek me and our child out, and eventually he will find us,' Wynne told the thegn in a firm and determined voice.

'He will never find you, my wild Welsh girl. You delude yourself if you believe that he senses you live,' Eadwine told her. 'If it comforts you to believe that now, then believe it; but in the end you will come to realize that I am right. Your prince will grieve greatly for you. That I understand, but he will eventually take another woman to wife, for he dare not allow his ancient line to die out lest the ghosts of his illustrious ancestors rise up and curse him. You are lost to Madoc of Powys, and he is lost to you forever.'

'If it comforts you to believe that, Eadwine Aethelhard,' Wynne replied, 'then believe it, but in the end you will see that I am right.'

He fell asleep quickly, his arm possessively about her. Wynne, however, despite her long and tiring day, lay awake. She was more than well aware of how fortunate she was in having been purchased by Eadwine Aethelhard. Another man would certainly have been less kind. A slave. No, whatever her legal position was in this land, she was not a slave in either her mind or her heart. She did not intend behaving like one either, or allowing anyone to make her feel less than that which she had always been. She was Wynne of Gwernach, wife to Madoc of Powys. She was a freeborn woman, and she would behave as one no matter her position in this household.

Time. She needed time to assess her surroundings. To discover just where she was and how she might escape back to her own land. It was already November, and the winter would be upon them very soon. Did she have time to make her way home now, or should she wait until spring? But come the spring, her child would be born. It would be harder to travel with a baby than to travel with the baby unborn. Unborn, the child was safely sheltered within her body. She did not know what to do. For the first time in her life she was faced with a situation to which there seemed to be no right answer.

Sleep. She needed to sleep. Her exhaustion was making her fearful and indecisive. These were qualities she dare not indulge if she was to survive; if her child was to survive. Madoc! Her heart called out to him in the silence of the night. Madoc! Why could he not hear her? They had loved one another from the first moment of their first meeting somewhere back in the dim mists of another time and place. He had pursued her through the other times and places that had followed in order to gain her forgiveness, to regain her love. He had both those things now, but fate had separated them once more. Still she struggled to reach out to him. Why was he not reaching out to her? He could not believe her dead! No matter what Brys of Cai had plotted and planned! No matter what Eadwine Aethelhard had said. Madoc could not believe her dead!

Could he? And as if in answer to her question, Wynne felt her child moving within her for the first time. No, little one, she thought, her graceful hands protectively cupping her belly. Your father does not believe us dead. He will find us one day. He will!

Chapter 12

When Ealdraed woke her the following morning, it was, to Wynne's embarrassment, well past sunrise. 'The lord wanted you to be well-rested,' the old woman assured her. 'I was told to leave you until now.' She helped Wynne to wash and dress, giving her a dark green tunic dress to wear over her lavender under tunic. 'The lord said you were to have it. It belonged to his late wife,' Ealdraed said, and then took her downstairs into the hall.

There was no one at the high board when Wynne calmly seated herself to the left of the thegn's place.

'Yer a bold wench for a slave,' Ealdraed noted.

'I am not a slave,' Wynne said firmly, 'though I have been stolen from my home and forced into this servitude.