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who pursued her.
    The cry came again, and Branwen followed it.
She could not help herself. Rhys had taught her to be a healer and
he had taught her well. If she could help someone in need she would
not pass by. She pushed open the cottage door and entered.
    A girl a year or two younger than herself lay
on a straw pallet in one corner, her belly swollen in the last
stages of pregnancy. There was no one else in the house.
    Branwen had never assisted at a birth, but
she had listened, with the curiosity youth has for such matters, to
everything the women at Tÿnant had said on the subject. She did
what she could to help the girl, which was not much, since the poor
creature was terrified and Branwen had no herbal medicines with
her. Before evening had come, a baby girl lay wrapped in a dirty
rag, and its too-young mother slept beside it on the straw.
    Branwen cleaned up the evidence of birth and
swept out the cottage, then washed her face and hands in the stream
behind the house. She was searching for food to prepare for the new
mother and herself when a bulky figure filled the door. The man
shuffled into the cottage, looking at Branwen in dumb surprise,
then at the sleeping girl. He gave a grunt and squatted down,
poking at the baby with a thick, mud-encrusted finger. He glanced
up at Branwen for a moment, his square, bland face filled with
wonder and joy, before he turned back to the pair on the
pallet.
    His wife, Branwen thought, wondering where
the other village women had been when the girl had needed them. It
was only later that she learned the new mother was not the man’s
wife at all but his sister, and the villagers, out of resentment
against their Norman lord, would have done nothing to help the girl
who unwillingly bore that lord’s child.
    The churl stood up and spoke to her. She
could not understand him. By gestures he asked if she had delivered
the child, and by gestures Branwen declared that she had.
    He smiled at her. He had a pleasant face and
there was a warmth about him, a sense of dumb, undemanding goodness
that Branwen, her heart still tormented by what had happened at
Afoncaer, found oddly comforting. This man was no Sir Edouard. This
man could be trusted. She smiled back at him. She hoped he would
let her stay in his house for a day or two. It would be good to
sleep under a roof again, however poor that roof might be. She was
too tired to go any further.
    The excitement of helping to bring new life
into the world was fading, and as it did, a weariness so heavy she
could not fight it came seeping through Branwen’s body, taking away
what little strength she had left. She staggered, her head reeling,
and the man caught her shoulders to steady her. He frowned when his
large hands felt the thinness of her shoulders and gave an
exclamation of dismay as his hands moved down to feel the bones of
her upper arms. His concerned expression gave Branwen the answer
she so desperately needed. She was welcome here.
    “Alfric,” the man said to her, one hand on
his chest.
    “Branwen.” She touched her own bosom.
    “Bran-wen, Branwen.” He said it several times
to be sure he was doing it right, and then he began to speak again
in his own tongue.
    Branwen spoke Welsh, a fair amount of Latin,
and knew a half-dozen or so words of French, but she spoke not one
word of English. She could see she would have to learn.

 
     
    Reynaud :
     
    Sir Edouard the Outlaw did not reign long at
Afoncaer. A year after he had taken it, the Welsh rose up and
attacked him and claimed the fortress for their own again. The
knights sent into Wales by William the Conqueror were too
preoccupied by their own conflicts with the natives to help
Edouard, even had they been inclined to assist a knight who called
no man his liege lord.
    In the summer of 1087, two years after
Branwen had fled from Afoncaer, the Conqueror died, and his second
son, William Rufus, became King of England. The new king was
involved with fighting both his older brother,