The Heart of a Queen (A Historical Romance)

Chapter 20

While the castle prepared for the great gathering to come, Brienna pretended to prepare for her wedding, when in actuality, what she did was escape from the place a frequently as possible in order to go for long walks. When Isobel announced she was going to some of the nearby villages to buy cheese and wine and other things they would need for the festivities, Brienna begged her to let her come along.

"No, I don't think we have the room," Isobel quickly shook her head.

"But who else is going?"

"Myself, someone to mind the horses, several servants to pack and carry the goods we collect, and," she said as an afterthought, "one of the kitchen girls."

"Moira?" Brienna blurted without thinking. Isobel rounded on her, stunned.

"Yes, why? Her family lives in one of the towns, I thought it would be kind to bring her so she could stop in and visit."

"That is exceedingly kind of you," Brienna said, ignoring the fact that Isobel never went out of her way to be kind to anyone else. "I won't be any trouble. Ulf will ready my horse for me—in fact I'll bring him too!"

Isobel huffed, but she clearly couldn't think of any further reason to protest, and on the day they were to set out, she accepted Brienna as one of their party as if she'd invited her from the beginning.  They rode next to each other as they passed between hills, which rose majestically to either side of them like green clouds sprouting white and yellow wildflowers.

Isobel's lustrous blonde hair almost matched the white gold of her horse's mane, she rode tall and straight, and Brienna again had the thought how better suited she would have been to leading an army. Instead, Isobel entertained them both with wry descriptions of the people who would be coming to stay at Gwynedd for this unprecedented gathering of the heads of the Welsh kingdoms and the Irish clans.

Brienna took a deep breath of the late spring air, full of the promise of early summer, and for a moment forgot her dread at her coming wedding, instead filling with hope about the bright future of Wales and Ireland, together in independence. She said as much to Isobel.

"I hope the same," she said, reserved. Brienna glanced at her.

"Do you have doubts?"

Isobel sighed, and for a moment Brienna saw in her the proud queen she could be, and would have been, were the world different and she had been ruler instead of Llewellyn.

"It's very easy to give promises in words, especially when one is flush with the conviviality of company, wine, good food. But it's not like it used to be, in the time of Arthur and his knights," she explained, recalling her favorite literature. "Men don't seem to value honor as highly as they once did, and allegiances are broken as quickly as they are made. When the English come bearing down with swords and steeds, I wouldn't put it past anyone to switch sides in order to save their skins."

"Even your brother?" Brienna chided her.

Isobel grinned. "Maybe not. But we'll see," she said, growing serious again. "I think if the spoils were sweet enough, even he would turn his back on his allies."

Perhaps even his allegiance with Connaught, Brienna heard the unspoken words that hung between them. Though these harsh truths rested heavily on her, she was still able to feel a thrill of warmth in the way Isobel spoke to her now: with the respect and candidness of a peer, or a friend.

For the rest of the ride, Brienna marveled at how much things had changed since she'd come to Gwynedd. She'd once been a headstrong girl whose only source of pride was that she was to be married off to the future king of the Leinster clan. She was still headstrong, but now it was born out of a sense of knowing what she stood for—of feeling like she had something to say on important matters, and could maybe even play a part in them, one day.

Toward evening, they arrived at the first village, where a prosperous sheep farmer put them up for the night. Brienna and Isobel were given rooms in his home, while the rest of their party were given a clean loft full of fresh hay in a barn nearby.

After a meal of sheep's cheese and soup, Brienna fell instantly asleep, tired from the journey, but was awakened shortly after by the sound of rustling. She opened her eyes just in time to see Isobel creeping from the room, a cloak pulled over her head despite the balmy nighttime air.

Waiting until Isobel had had enough time to exit the house, Brienna rose from her bed and peeked out the window. By the light of the slivered moon, she could just see Isobel's shadow meeting another cloaked figure around the side of the barn where the others slept. The two joined hands and together sped into the covered blackness of the woods nearby.

A midnight rendezvous with Moira, Brienna suspected, pulling away from the window. Back under the thin covers of the borrowed bed, she traced hands over her body, lingering on the mounds of her breasts and the space between her legs that was hotter in temperature than the rest of her. Then she blushed in the darkness, letting her hands fall away.

She was jealous of Isobel for having someone to love and play with, even if it had to be kept secret. Her thoughts wandered to Llewellyn, and the way his arms had clutched her a little tighter than was necessary, once, when they were dancing in the great hall. If they were ever to have an encounter of their own, it would also have to be in secret.

The thought was both titillating and sad; exciting, but not likely to ever happen, since she would soon be married to Donnall and taken back to Ireland. It suddenly struck her that, after this gathering and the ceremony which was to cap off the festivities, she would probably never see Llewellyn again. Or Isobel. Or Gwynedd and the cliffs looking out on the sea.

She was still awake when Isobel crept back into the room. She heard her roommate pause, as if she suspected that Brienna was not sleeping, but then Isobel climbed into her own bed. Soon her breath became rhythmic, and Brienna was left alone with her remorse over a love affair that was ended before it had ever begun.