A Gift of Sanctuary Read Online Free PDF Page B

country.’
    ‘You mean I have remembered that I am Welsh.’
    Sir Robert studied Owen’s face. ‘It is more than that. You are questioning all that you have become since you left this place.’
    ‘Not questioning, Sir Robert. Realising what I had forgotten. And wondering what has become of the family I left here.’
    ‘You do not like the way your people are treated.’
    ‘My people?’
    Sir Robert’s eyes were sad as he dropped his hand. ‘Forgive me. I am a meddling old fool who has opened a wound I had not even known was there.’
    ‘Do you fear that I might stay here and desert my family?’
    ‘No. No, my son.’ Sir Robert coughed, clutched the wall as if dizzy.
    Owen put an arm round Sir Robert to support him, found the old man shivered despite his warm cloak. ‘Come. Let me see to that cough and your sour stomach.’
    Sir Robert allowed himself to be helped down the steps and into Owen’s chamber in the west range. He was unusually silent while Owen worked on him, averting his eyes from his son-in-law as if fearful he might be tempted into a conversation he did not wish to have. What was it he did not want to say? Without his chatter, Owen was keenly aware of the old man’s laboured breathing, the unhealthy wheeze and intermittent gurgle as if water collected in his chest.
    When Owen could bear the silence no longer he asked, ‘What is it? What silenced you up on the tower?’
    ‘I would not speak of it.’
    ‘We have ever been open with each other. I pray you, tell me what lies so heavy on your heart.’
    ‘You brought to mind my wife, Amélie. Once, when I was out of humour with her, I shouted that I would send her home to her people. She said, “My people? You are my people now.” Her voice was so sad. I beat her for being ungrateful.’ Sir Robert had taken to wife the daughter of a captured Norman noble in lieu of his ransom. ‘I believed I had given her a better life than she would have had among the defeated, and she dared to mourn them.’ He passed a shaky hand across his eyes. ‘I was cruel in my ignorance. What prayer did I neglect in my youth that God allowed me to treat her so, and then, when it was too late, to gain the understanding I had lacked? I do not know.’
    Owen knew his father-in-law was not asking now for a comfort he did not believe he deserved. ‘I had forgotten my people were defeated,’ Owen said. ‘Perhaps Amélie had also.’ He turned away from the old man’s bowed head and put away his medicines.
    ‘The bishop’s constable says John de Reine did not come through here,’ Sir Robert said hollowly.
    ‘Perhaps he rode through to Haverfordwest. We should reach it tomorrow.’ Owen returned to sit beside his father-in-law. ‘The bond of blood is strong. Your daughter forgave you all. What breach, what festering sore caused Reine to question his father’s loyalty to his lord in such a public, damaging way?’
    ‘He was given a position, not a name?’ Sir Robert suggested.
    ‘And so he ruins that name denied him. Perhaps.’
    ‘Do you not think it likely the agent of his failure to meet you at Carreg Cennen was his troubled conscience?’
    ‘He left it too late.’
    ‘As did I.’ Sir Robert raised the cup to Owen, drank down the remainder of the tisane for his throat. ‘God bless you for this. Already my voice is stronger.’
    Owen heard no change.
    The rain diminished as they rode on towards Haverfordwest, and gradually a pale sun shone down on the riders. By midday Owen felt the gentle breath of spring in the air, but he found little joy in it for worrying about his father-in-law. Owen and Lucie had argued about the dangers of such a journey for a man of her father’s age. Sir Robert was ever vague about his birth date, but Dame Phillippa, his sister, estimated him to be close to fourscore years of age. It was true that when in his prime Sir Robert had been a formidable opponent in battle, but upon the death of Lucie’s mother he had gone on a long