“That it is.” The other turned his back on him. Pen had the sense he didn’t like what he was hearing. “Ifor!” the man bellowed. “Call in the kid. He’s straying near where Dah—where Mrs. Van der Welle planted the monkshood, and I don’t have the fence up yet.”
The goat boy, who was sheltering on bales of hay stacked under another thatched lean-to, patted his four-footed companion on the rump and gave him instructions in Welsh. Pen watched in astonishment as the billy trotted to the kid, butted it back toward its mother, then resumed his place at theboy’s side, as if he were a trained herd dog. The boy patted the goat and walked him toward a cluster of flowering shrubs that stood against a low wall of old bricks, the outline of some former building. The goat fell to eating greedily.
Pen shook off the irritation that needled him at the sight of the stricken child. He wasn’t responsible for his condition. Why should he feel guilty? Once again he reached for shreds of memory, for the cause of his unease, and once again his thoughts parted like mist.
“Tell me about her,” he said instead. “About Gwen. What is her history?”
“Can’t say. Don’t know,” the man answered.
Evans. That was his name. At least he remembered someone’s name. He was improving.
“How can you not know? I thought you’ve been here for years.”
“I have. Came to St. Sefin’s almost from the beginning, nigh seven years ago. I can tell you about anyone who’s here, except Miss Gwen.” He put his shoulder to the vat, pushing it onto its side so the water poured into a nearby drain. Pen watched, impressed at his strength. “I don’t even think that’s her name.”
“What do you mean?” This was interesting. What could she be hiding?
Evans kicked the vat back into place and moved to the one beside it. “Gwenllian is a name with great meaning for the Cymry. One Gwenllian was a princess, daughter of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last true Prince of Wales.”
“George is the Prince of Wales,” Pen snapped.
“To you,Sais,” Evans said coolly, and went on with his work. “And then there’s Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd, renowned for her beauty, her intelligence, her grace.” He spoke in a lyrical rhythm, as if reciting an old ballad. “She married a prince of Deheubarth and led an army against the Normans at Kidwelly Castle. Shemight have beaten them, too, if not for the treachery of her own kind.”
Gwenllian. The name of princesses, of warrior queens. “Her name really could be Gwenllian,” Pen said.
Evans shrugged a shoulder. “True. But she calls herself ap Ewyas. Of Ewyas, that is. ’Tis the name of an ancient kingdom recorded in our stories, before the Saxons, before even the Romans came. A kingdom of power and prosperity and wealth.”
“Where was this kingdom located?” Pen asked, fascinated despite himself.
“Here, legend has it,” Evans said.
Gwenllian ap Ewyas. Pen tried to wrap his tongue around the strange syllables. She belonged to that identity, a name endowing pride, power, wealth, and high blood. He wondered who she had been before.
It made them alike, in a way. Pen pondered this as he left Evans to his task and Ifor to his goats and, like a sensible person, got himself out of the rain. He had no history. No past. No identity. He could make for himself whatever name he wanted.
As he set foot inside the old priory, strangely welcoming despite its vast stone façade, Pen heard it, through the mist: the tolling of the bell at St. Woolos, low, dolorous, deep. The battered stranger, poor bastard, had left this mortal coil for his great reward beyond.
Pen had seen enough of death to last him centuries—he didn’t know how or when, but he knew he was sick of death. Especially useless death. There was no glory, no majesty, no greatness in it. One moment a man was gasping for air, tormented with a mind, a conscience, a soul, and the next—nothing. Ashes and dust.
And yet Gwenllian ap Ewyas had fetched him from the gutter, twice, and brought him to this shabby pile of rocks tokeep his worthless carcass alive. He owed her his life. Everyone here did.
What kind of woman came from nowhere, took a new name, and set out to save the dregs of society from washing out to sea?
He wiped the cold rain from the back of his neck, shaking off his gloomy fancies. He wasn’t ready to give up his life, nor did he want to fashion a new one. He meant to find his own name, his own life, and go back to it. He couldn’t be cursed with this foggy head forever. He’d leave and never again be obliged to deal with harping crones, simpletons, the poor and the maimed and the broken. They would be someone else’s problem. Not his.
But there was a danger beyond these grounds; he felt Gwen’s fear. He couldn’t just throw himself defenseless on the world and expect it to treat him kindly. He needed to find where he belonged. Then he’d leave and never look back.
But, he admitted to himself as he roamed the ancient pile that was St. Sefin’s, he wanted one thing from the mysterious Gwen before he left. He wanted her to see him as more than another burden, one more broken soul. He’d pierce that high curtain wall she’d constructed around herself. She would look at him with an expression that was not scorn, not exasperation, and not pity, but softness. Admiration. Perhaps even desire.
Yes, that would be a neat way to tie up his time here. He would change her opinion of him no matter what it cost him.
Andthenhe would leave and never look back.
Surviving at St.Sefin’s, Pen soon found, required more skills than he possessed. He discovered this a few mornings later when Gwen, pronouncing that he was healing well, laid off his sling and made him tie his own neckcloth.
“I don’t know how to tie my own neckcloth,” Pen snapped, enraged by this discovery. “Maybe I don’t wear neckcloths in my real life. Or suppose I have other people to do it for me.”
“Who’s to do it for you here?” Gwen snapped back.
