Castle of Dreams Read Online Free PDF

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for long. “Sir Edouard, is something wrong? Have you finished? Sir
Edouard?”
    The man was fast asleep, lying right on top
of her. The herbed wine had taken effect at last. But had it worked
too late? Being totally inexperienced, she wasn’t certain exactly
what he had done to her.
    She had to push and shove and squeeze herself
out from under his limp form. Then she had to roll him over so she
could look at the sheet. She couldn’t not look. She had to
know.
    The sheet was unstained. Nor was there any
blood upon her thighs or anywhere on him. Her body still felt the
pressure of his determined manhood, but she was certain he had
taken nothing from her that would give him any legitimate claim to
Afoncaer.
    But he had taken her innocence. Looking at
his strong, mature body sprawled unconscious across Father Conan’s
ascetic bed, she wept – wept for her dead loved ones, for what he
had done to them and to her, and most of all, for the honest
warrior he might have been, who might have taken her as his willing
bride in a union blessed by the father and grandfather he had
killed.
    She did not weep for long. She knew she had
to get as far away from Afoncaer as possible before Sir Edouard
awakened. She dressed hastily, then slid back the door bolt. Father
Conan was kneeling in prayer in the outer room.
    “My child,” he said, rising, “you’ve been
crying. Are you unharmed? You were in there so long. Sir Edouard
did not … did not …?”
    “He has no claim to Afoncaer except by right
of sword,” Branwen said proudly, and all the more fiercely because
she had been tempted to give Sir Edouard what he wanted. “If he had
taken me, I would have killed him with my dagger, and myself
afterward.” She touched the sheath fastened at her belt, knowing
she spoke the truth. Then she went to her knees to ask the priest’s
blessing.
    “Thank you for your help, Father Conan. Now
I’d advise you to drink deeply of that wine until you fall asleep
in this room. That way Sir Edouard won’t suspect you when he
discovers I’m gone. He will blame it all on me.”
    “Go safely, my child. I will pray for you
every day.”
    It had grown dark while she was in the
priest’s house with Sir Edouard. She picked her way cautiously
toward the stable, stumbling over a sleeping Norman who fortunately
did not waken. Someone had carelessly left a torch burning in a
sconce high on one wall of the stable. By its light she easily
found her saddle and then her horse.
    It was an unimportant looking animal compared
to the Normans’ larger mounts, but it was, like all Welsh ponies,
fleet of foot, and it knew her. She headed toward it, calling
softly. The horse recognized her voice and lifted its head. Its
long mane rippled at the motion and its sweeping, silky tail
swished as it always did when she was near.
    When the horse was saddled and ready Branwen
took it out of the stable and walked it across all the open area in
front of the great hall, past the banquet tables and the ruined
palisade, and finally onto the beginning of the road.
    She used a large rock to help her mount. The
heavy skirts of her too-large dress tangled in her legs, nearly
dragging her off the pony’s back until she regained her balance
just as it started to move, and then she was racing down the
moon-silvered road, riding away from Afoncaer, the accursed river
fortress, leaving it and never looking back.

Chapter 3
     
     
    She did not know where to go. Tynant was in
Norman hands; so she would find no refuge there. Branwen knew the
direction in which Rhys ap Daffydd had fled when the Normans
captured his home in Powys. She thought she could find him. She
believed he would welcome her. She considered the idea, then put it
aside. She was certain Sir Edouard would mount a determined
pursuit, and she would not lead him to a kinsman who had been her
teacher and had been kind to her. She would take a different
direction, away from any place where Rhys might be.
    Branwen rode as