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EXCERPT 1: PROLOGUE AND EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 1

In 1066, Duke Guillaume of Normandy, known to the English as William the Conqueror, won the Battle of Hastings and was crowned King of England.

In 1087, the Norman barons began their invasion of Wales.

By 1126, after countless deaths amongst the thorn-infested hills, swamps, and forests, the Normans had managed to subdue all five Welsh kingdoms. More or less.

Chapter 1. HOMECOMING

All Hallows’ Eve, 1126. West Wales

When the castle loomed out of the hailstorm above her, Angharad was careful not to crane her head upwards in awe as her Norman guards did. Her mother had commanded her to uphold her dignity, no matter what, so she kept her back straight and sat rigid in her saddle. Although the steepness of the hill made her feel as if spikes of ice were being hurled down at her by the castle itself, she didn’t cower. She pretended not to hear the guards cursing about having to drag a pair of heathen women out of the Welsh wildlands. She alone would be her mother’s last, unfailing support.

Angharad’s mother, Nesta, rode alongside, her imperious glare fixed on the track ahead, ignoring the water that streamed from her claw-black hair onto her horse’s flank. Even dressed in threadbare travelling clothes, Nesta didn’t look like the prisoner she was, finally recaptured by the Normans after three years of threats, bribes, and attempted ambushes. She didn’t look like a new bride either, although she was bound to marry the Constable of the castle; the contract had been sealed. No. What Nesta looked like, in the arrogant line of her jaw, in the resolute set of her flawless face, was what she was born to be.

Royalty.

During her nineteen years of life, Angharad had been reminded daily that her mother was the last living princess of Deheubarth, once the most renowned of the Welsh kingdoms. Angharad’s bloodline was the only wealth she possessed; she must look the part.

‘Amongst wolves,’ Nesta had said – and many wolves lived in the cloud-draped forests of these lands – ‘you can tell the leader of the pack from the way he draws every eye towards him. My father looked like a king from two arrowshots away, even when he was wounded from the endless wars, even when he was starving and freezing and caked in mud. Whatever fate we meet in this castle, I refuse to grovel before them. Hold your head high, Angharad. We must not disgrace the memory of our glorious ancestors.’

Luckily, deception was one of Angharad’s talents: Nesta had trained her in it since she was a child. Angharad had the skill of appearing haughty whilst at her most powerless.

When Nesta dismounted on the crest of the hill, Angharad copied, stifling a wince at the cramp in her thighs. Sixty miles they had travelled from the open meadows where they had spent their years of sanctuary amongst the Welsh: a journey of three days and nights, riding and walking through a wasteland of swamps and brambles, the Norman guards watchful behind them, bloodhounds running at their flanks to warn them of rebels and outlaws, with every hamlet full of hostile eyes and nothing to buy and almost nothing to steal. But here they were, at last.

 

EXCERPT 2: EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 1

At the edge of the inner courtyard, Angharad released her mother’s hand. Nesta stood alone, scowling up at Étienne on the hail-darkened castle wall, as regal as if the ghosts of her mighty ancestors, the kings of legend who once ruled these lands – Rhys ap Tewdwr, Cadwaladr the blood-bringer, the myth-cloaked Arthur Pen Ddraig of Camelot – were lingering invisible beside her. They would be horror-struck that a lowborn foreigner was shameless enough to call himself their master.

‘Mama…’ Angharad murmured.

Nesta didn’t weaken the contempt of her sneer at the man who was to become her fifth husband. Every eye in the courtyard was fixed upon her.

‘Mama!’ Angharad repeated, more loudly. They must submit. They had no choice.

Nesta’s gaze flickered towards Angharad. Then, she smiled. She glowed, incandescent as if a shaft of blinding sunlight had broken through the hailstorm; as if Étienne was her God-given destiny and she was born to be the gracious lady of this castle; as if she had not schemed, backstabbed and begged for three long years to avoid this moment. A low sigh arose from the captivated folk in the courtyard.

Nesta held up her hands and called out in her perfect Norman French, Angharad’s native language, ‘Thank you for the warmth of your welcome, sire. Praise Our Lord in His Grace for returning us safely to you. How overjoyed we are to be home!’

Angharad beamed, too, as brightly as if her life depended on it – which it did.

And her smile didn’t waver when the Constable nodded his signal, the iron winch strained, the ponderous chains clanged, and the monstrous gates of Aberteifi Castle swung shut behind them.

 

EXCERPT 3: EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 2

‘Have you heard the rumours?’ Spoken in Latin, the words were a faint breath in Angharad’s ear. Angharad was startled, for Nesta rarely gossiped, or, indeed, spoke to her of anything beyond their mundane daily lives, and even more strangely, she was using the sacred language of the priests, a tongue which many men knew, but only the noblest of women. Étienne would not have had the foresight to hire servants who spoke Latin; he could not have expected Angharad to be educated in it. But Nesta had insisted that Angharad learn it. Perhaps she had imagined a day when their lives might rely on whispered secrets.

‘Rumours?’ asked Angharad.

‘Rumours of a coming rebellion amongst the Welsh.’

Foreboding crept into Angharad’s stomach. Her mind flashed with memories – Father in helmet and mail coat, rage in his eyes; Mama watching through an arrow-slit, smiling. And, deep in her earliest childhood, flames.

‘The markets we passed on our journey were empty,’ Nesta breathed, ‘which means people are hoarding food. Can you feel it in the air? Another uprising is coming. It’s why King Henri wants me remarried quickly and sealed up in a Norman castle; it’s why we could not stay any longer with my brother.’

Angharad thought of her jolly Uncle Gruffudd, the Welsh lord, in whose household they had taken refuge for the last three years – of his comical wrestling with Nesta’s bloodhounds in his feasting hall, of his jokes about the Normans which were always too malicious, of his haunted expression when he listened, enraptured, to his bards sing of the time before this kingdom was conquered. Of how deeply he had grieved when forced by King Henri’s command, under threat of exile and bloodshed, to yield her and Nesta back into Norman hands. No refuge remained for them in Gruffudd’s lands.

‘Mama, if the Welsh rise up again, what will Uncle Gruffudd do?’

Nesta’s pale skin gleamed in the moonlight.

Angharad shuffled closer. ‘Will Uncle Gruffudd rebel again?’

Nesta did not reply.

The foreboding in Angharad’s gut worsened, sending prickles of fear into her chest. She made a silent prayer that the Welsh would not betray King Henri – that they would prove true Christians, faithful to the Norman crown, as God commanded. She had witnessed enough executions to know what fate befell traitors in these conquered lands.

‘Mama, when we bade him farewell, Uncle Gruffudd said something odd: “Be patient, sister. It won’t be long.” Is that what he meant? An uprising?’ Angharad could still picture Gruffudd’s solemn gaze and how close he had stood to Nesta, his hair next to hers, red against black.

‘There is so much I should have told you, my love. I wanted to shield you from the world, but I regret it now. I’ve kept you in ignorance, and it’s my fault.’

 

EXCERPT 4: EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 3

Étienne cast his eyes over the parchments spread on the table before him. ‘The Welsh can’t be trusted. Another rebellion against Norman rule is coming. I must know if your mother is plotting with her brother, if I am marrying a traitor.’

‘Sire, my mother has lived with the Normans since childhood – she may be Welsh by birth, but she is no rebel. She desires only to live in peace—’, Angharad began.

‘I must know everything about her!’ Étienne stood abruptly, scattering documents on the floor. ‘For three years she refused to return here, though I freely offered her my hand! Why did she stay with the Welsh in her brother’s lands? Why did she run from me?’ His voice blazed out, and in that moment, Angharad recognised it: the depth of his obsession with her mother. She had seen it before. She understood, with precision, how men consumed by it could become vindictive.

‘My mother is delighted to be betrothed to you, sire. The unfortunate delay was due to legal matters too complicated for me to—’

‘I want you to talk to your mother about your uncle. Find out if he is going to rebel, and if she is helping him.’

‘My mother is obedient, sire. She would never rebel. She obeys God’s will that we be loyal to the Norman crown.’

‘The priests tell me that no-one with beauty like hers can be without sin.’

‘My mother is chaste and virtuous, sire.’

‘Is she? Ha! Men call her the siren of Wales! She flaunted herself amongst the rebels with Owain, the murderous Prince of Powys!’

Angharad wished she could disappear through the cracks in the floorboards. ‘My mother was his captive, sire – an unwilling victim. Surely you cannot blame—’

‘The Sheriff of Penfro Castle, that swine from Flanders, is spreading rumours that she’s the mother of his son.’

‘Sire, that’s a vicious slander. My mother—’

‘And have you heard how she enthralled King Henri?’

There was no answer to that one. Angharad clenched her hands together and clamped her mouth shut.

As Étienne sat back down, Angharad noticed that the chair he was sitting on had once belonged to her father. It was embellished with intricate carvings and cut unusually high. The charismatic, masterful Gérald de Windsor had dominated it. The chair was too big for Étienne.

‘I hear your mother can read and write script as cunningly as a monk.’

‘That is a false rumour, sire. She is a modest, obedient lady; she cannot read.’ Angharad was careful not to look at the documents on the table, witnessed with a smudged ‘X’, Étienne’s mark.

Étienne frowned. ‘I remember you from before. You watch people, notice hidden things; you can sense your mother’s moods. Now it seems you’re also a talented liar, hm?’

‘Sire—’

Étienne leant forwards in the chair which was too big for him, and he lowered his voice. ‘Do you remember how, when you were a child, your father would feed you sweetmeats from his own trencher if you could persuade your mother to say her prayers in Norman?’

Angharad’s heart lurched at that memory. ‘You… but how did you know—?’

‘I remember the care with which your father brought you up as a Norman, Angharad. I want you to help me. Help me, like you helped him. I want you to find out if your uncle is a rebel. And tell your mother nothing about my suspicions of her. Nothing.’

‘But, sire, she will wonder why I keep asking about my uncle. Could you—?’

‘What? Question her? If she’s conspiring with the Welsh, how truthful will she be? How truthful is your mother, ever?’ Étienne huffed with frustration and sat back in his chair. ‘You are the best person to discover her intrigues; you never leave her side. You must find out if she is helping the rebels. Remember that you’re a Norman, Angharad – like your father, like your brothers, like me. Not like her. Remember I can end your life, if I wish it.’