It's the whispers on the staircase that began first.
     The earl's wife is in labour. She's so small, poor creature, do you think she'll make it?
     She always has been a fighting lass. Look how she and his Grace do get on. But she's so small, you're right. And oh, the blood on the midwife's apron...
     The blood. There is always blood at a birthing, isn't there? But the footsteps and the faces of the midwife was so serious, so sorrowful as she came to you, to tell you what you surely must suspect. I'm so sorry, my lord. We've done all we can, sir, but she is of a more delicate constitution than we might have guessed.
     We can hope to save the baby, but I'm afraid there isn't much hope. It's only a matter of time - no, we've made her as comfortable as we can. But...
     She's asking for you...
     Asking, nothing. Insisting. And now you hear her - her voice is weak, lacking the usual force that marked her as that presentiment of Fate with which you fell in love. She sounds small, now. But there is nothing in her voice to suggest that she is anyone other than Penelope Carter, Lord General Carter's daughter.
     "If you do not present my husband to me immediately, I will drag myself off this bed, baby and all, and if I've got to, crawl into his presence. It wouldn't be the first time there's been a mess of things, now would it!"

     He has remained right outside the door not of the master suites that they shared when first married but a more convenient lower floor guest chamber, comfortable nonetheless, that proved more comfortable for a wife heavy with child than the narrow stairs of the castle's master rooms.
     Long labors are not unusual. He has had wives, and children, before. But the longer this went, the quieter her cries became. The earl did not need the nurse's report to know the truth: he was going to lose her, lose them both. When he saw the nurse, it simply confirmed that they had surrendered to a greater force, and so must he.
     The door ticks open softly and Rhodri comes in with gentleness in his steps. He holds the door open for the young woman who remained. Now no one is here but you and him, and he closes the door behind him.
     His green eyes are bright, and when he looks at you his love is acknowledged in every part of his expression. "General Carter," Rhodri gives you a gentle smile, a bow of his head, but then he does not remain apart from you. He moves to join you on the bed.
     Most men might be squeamish, awkward. But he is not most men.
     A cloth is taken and strokes lightly against your forehead, wiping away the sweat that has dampened your hair, and the gown you wear. I am not going to say goodbye, my darling. I'm just going to be here, and I'm going to love you.
     "I should have been in this bed all along," Rhodri notes, his hand stilling, the cloth set aside on the other side of your pillow. He may need it again later. "You know how I love being in the way..."

     "You are always in the way." Her voice is weak, but her hand reaches for you - giving the visible lie to her tart choice of words. Those grey eyes are dulled, now - first with pain and then with laudanum, the latter blessedly pushing some of the agony back behind the curtain.
     She says it, and then she says nothing, not right away. A spasm twists her face for a moment, and then Penny sighs. "You are still as ... unpredictable and ... unorthodox as ever," she whispers, turning her head on the pillow and blinking slowly. "And here I am, looking awful, my hair matted. Blood everywhere." Her voice sinks a bit. "Did you ever think that this would be my final battlefield, Rhodri? I didn't."
     She knows. Oh, yes, she knows. She can feel it within her - things broken, her energy running out, tick-tock. Her other hand drags up onto her stomach. There is still something she does not know. "At least ... you should have something to remember me by. The midwife should be able to do that much, at least, for her pay."

     "I know. I suppose I can't help it. The mountains... are in the way of the sunset here, and I am in the way too." He smiles a little. But, yes, you both know. There's no point in saying it aloud. While your eyes are dulled with the narcotic, his are bright with his emotion and with the water that is held there, despite his smiles, the breath released that before today would have been laughter.
     Instead, it comes out just like a sigh.
     "The better to keep you on your toes." Lying beside you, he does not care for how his clothes will be ruined. He holds you, and he kisses you. "Here we are," he corrects you softly. "And... no... my love, I did not." But that's all he says about it.
     "I love when your hair is tangled," Rhodri murmurs, his own voice showing his emotion. "Especially... in the mornings, before you have a chance to brush it out from the previous night's wrangling. I've always been ... tangled up in you."
     He kisses you again. "I don't need our baby to remind me of you." His hand rests on your belly. It has gone quiet too. The laudanum. It has rocked it to sleep. "But it will be my dearest reminder. That... and the scar you gave me on my shoulder."
     He is quiet for a moment. He swallows an unmanly sob before it can choke upward into sound. "I love you, Penelope. Fy... glomen bach," he whispers. My little dove.

     "Don't be so sad." Penny's voice is still low, and her fingers catch at yours, sliding loosely to your wrist. "Fool. I love you, too." And here and now it is freely given, freely said. No grudging note - no fight to it.
     If ever you needed further proof of what is to happen to her...
     "Do you remember... at the dance?" She closes her eyes, spacing her words apart drowsily. "My sisters were so excited by you - the thought that 'an Earl, a real, live earl' wanted to dance with me. As if there were dead ones who might." She snorts quietly.
     "I suppose from here on out it will all be dead earls for me, though, won't it? I will be the wallflower in the cemetery, buried in the corner, ignored by all the grand old dead who have been there since ... oh ... time immemorial. So short a time I had for blazing success! Here, I suppose, my marrying you meant something to people. There, it will mean nothing."
     She opens her eyes, blinking at you. "It meant nothing to me." Penny whispers it as she looks at you, seeks your eyes with her own. "I never told anyone ... about your double life. I swore you to honesty and myself to secrecy, but ... I have to tell you now, now that it is on the edge of no longer mattering, Rhodri. I ... liked that you kissed me ... the very first time we met. Don't forget it. Don't ... be so honest once I'm gone, will you? But don't get yourself hanged, either."
     She shudders, closing her eyes again. And she makes an admission that she would never have done, if she were not in such circumstances. "Rhodri ... I am very afraid. Is this - what it is like, on a battlefield? Because I'm scared, and I don't ... I don't want to go."

     "There is a great something still waiting for you," he says. "I know it, because I've seen it for myself. You can still watch me there, if you even care to." He chuckles softly at that. "You will know what I am talking about when you get there. There is a crowd of apple trees and the clearest, sweetest water you've ever seen. When I dream, I go there." He lifts his head and kisses you again. "And since when I am awake my dream," his hand gives your hand a squeeze, "....is with me, then I know... you will see it, too."
     Don't be afraid, my love. I told you... I will be with you. And you know I never make promises idly...
     "Hmmm.... that kiss..." he has to smile at it. "It was not the last time I would wish your sisters were somewhere else so I could have my wicked way with you." With a gentle hand, he brushes a touch against your face, brushing back a tangle of your hair. "I won't forget any of it. Not the first kiss." Not the last. Rhodri glances at the door as if he wonders if he might get caught and then with his bare hand he lifts your chin.
     The kiss is gentler than the first you ever received from him, but his love and desire are crammed in it. "There's not a king on this island that can catch me, let alone hang me. I'm your red fox, oes? Always." He does not close his eyes, but he kisses you again.
     "I don't want you to go," Rhodri says in a hush. "I wish it were up to me, darling." I can't fix it. And Davydd can't fix it. Magic we have, heal we can, but we can't right the course of nature herself. His fingers are warm, or maybe it's the effect of the laudanum. The pain drifts off like a cloud.
     "You'll be here," he murmurs. "With me. Not even ...God can change that." Not god. Nor death either.

     "You can't always win, can you?" Penny smiles at you, but it's a lopsided smile, her eyes opening for a moment. "But you - you are so frustrating. I can tell you these things now, because soon they won't matter any longer. I needed to fight you. I wanted, in my heart of hearts, for you to win..."
     Her voice is softer now, softer yet than it was, growing fainter. "But you wouldn't take your victory. And I was afraid - in the way that I will always be afraid, I suppose... that since you wouldn't take it ... I had to give it to you, because otherwise, I might lose you forever. I hate that you made me do that."
     Her fingers stroke gently against your palm, just slightly, then going still. "You won't remember that, of course. You're a man. But I hope that someday ... someday you do remember it. A girl likes to be won completely, now and again - without having to be the one to take the final step, even. Fox. Don't forget to finish off your prey..."
     You speak, and she sighs, sinking back into her pillow, into the bedding, those grey eyes closed now as if it is too heavy a weight, opening them. "You paint such pretty pictures." Penny's voice is wistful, all of a sudden, dreamy, far away. "Apples... then they'll be your favourite, won't they? But I have to go. And what you describe is too peaceful. You can't protect me forever, Rhodri."
     One last time, the eyelashes flicker; one last time, she looks at you. "Thank you," Penny whispers, before her eyes close again. "I'm glad you're here. Promise me ..."
     She's silent, unmoving, and then, finishes her thought. "Promise me," Penny sighs, "that you won't wait forever. I love you, but ... I don't know where I'm going. I'll try not to lose my way in the woods again. I - I love you, Rhodri."
     She sighs again, her hand going limp. There is still a pulse; her chest rises slightly, lowers slightly, but it is a thin, fragile motion, and one which all too quickly stills. Maybe now she isn't afraid any longer.

     There are trees... in a glen... not so far away from here, but a world away from here... that blossom forever, grow fruit forever, and now you are with them, my little apple. And I will plant two for you and plant you among them. And you and I will always be here.
     Because I never got around to telling you that I could live forever. But... right now... that's just too much time to think about. Too much time, and you didn't get enough of it.
     Rhodri sighs against Penelope's forehead, kissing her through the last of her breaths. He presses his mouth to her skin and closes his eyes. "There will be a tree with your name carved on it. Look for the hunter's hounds, and you will find me. Like the old Celtic legends... of the hounds of Pwyll and the apples of Avalon, fy glomen fach..."
     My little dove. He says it again and again, but he knows she is already gone. But he says it, and he says it throughout the whole of the day and the night while he lies with her.
     She and the baby will be buried not in some tomb to be forgotten but in the middle of the gardens of Powis Castle, an apple tree at each shoulder, with the small rivulet that trickles nearby. As long as Lord Rhys the Earl of Radnor remains in people's memories, they will recall him spending his days and his evenings out there. He will have never married, so long as folks could recall.
     He will have passed out of people's memories before his natural life would end, and the Black Jack Davy will have simply become a song. But Rhodri will have not disappeared from this earth. He would live in Powis still, with another name, another life.
     And so it would go until things changed on the island, until reality dictated he leave his castle and his bride and go to London. Just in time for the bombing. For a time he would lose himself in the perfume and smoke of the 20th Century, no matter its wars.
     And apple trees would come and go. When the first ones died, their children took over. It's a copse within the garden now. Covered with blossoms in the spring, apples in the autumn, pink leaves turned to brown in the winter. No stone to mark her spot but a plaque engraved with a Welsh poem. The title?
     To Penelope...

Posted by rowan at October 22, 2005 07:57 PM