Adan lifted a dark eyebrow. “You do and you know it,” he said, holding up a hand to beg patience while he continued. “Aeron, you must put a siege out of your mind for now, at least until you hear from Phylip. Right now, you do not have enough men. It would be futile because you would not have enough support for a sustained campaign against a castle that has never been breached.”
Aeron was confident in his arrogance. “No one has ever seriously tried,” he said. “With enough men, we can get over her walls. It can be done.”
Adan switched tactics. “Then the Saesneg might harm Juliandra to punish you for your aggression,” he said. “Did you ever think of that?”
Aeron hadn’t, but he hated to admit such a thing. His rising battle ardor was cooled. “Nay,” he finally said. “They are cowards and brutes. I suppose it is possible that they could.”
Adan nodded firmly. “You want her returned to you whole and safe, not thrown over the wall to punish you for your actions,” he said. “If the Saesneg wants a woman, then mayhap that is what we should do. Exchange Juliandra for another woman and that would solve the problem of Juliandra’s captivity. We could bring him one, someone beautiful and lush.”
Aeron’s eyebrows lifted. “More beautiful and lush than Juliandra?”
Adan conceded the point. “I realize that will be difficult, but if you want your lady returned to you safely, then you will have to offer the Saesneg something equal, or better, in return,” he said. “Give him another woman in exchange for yours. Tell him that the woman we have is more valuable than Juliandra somehow.”
Unfortunately, Aeron wasn’t very bright. He thought in very simplistic terms, which meant he thought that such an exchange might be a good idea, not realizing that his cousin had only presented it to keep him from raising an army and turning this section of the Marches into a battlefield.
Adan was trying to prevent a bloodbath, that was true, but he was mostly trying to prevent a death – his.
He could only hope his cousin took the bait.
“Could it be that simple, then?” Aeron said, excitement in his tone. “We give him another woman and Juliandra is returned to me? But the woman we offer will truly have to have something outstanding, something that makes her more attractive than Juliandra.”
Adan was already nodding as if he had the perfect solution. “She will,” he said. “I am thinking of Yestyn’s wife, the woman who has provided him five children because he cannot keep his hands from her. You know the one – with black hair and black eyes, and breasts that are enormous and milky. The woman makes every man who meets her want to bed her. You can smell her female scent from a distance, like a siren’s call.”
Aeron knew the woman. She was bold and lush and curvy, with big, red lips that she never hesitated to put on a man’s privates, even after she spoke the words of marriage with one of Aeron’s biggest and toughest men.
He finally snorted.
“Rumor has it that the last two children aren’t even Yestyn’s,” he said, a lewd grin on his face. “She was down washing by the lake one day and I saw a man come up behind her and take her right there on the shore. And she let him. She is too much woman for one man.”
“Then let her seduce the Saesneg,” Adan said with a grin. “He could not turn her away. Juliandra is beautiful, but she is also pure. She’s not yet learned how to seduce a man. But Lilia… she knows. She unfurls herself every chance she gets and if she can control the man…”
Aeron was catching on. “Then we can control him.”
“Exactly. That is better than any siege.”
Aeron was starting to like this plan. It was far more subversive than the one he had in mind, but probably more effective. “She can also tell us of his plans,” he said. “We can plant her right where we need her and she can tell us everything.”
Adan was relieved that Aeron was seeing things his way. “She can tell us everything he is doing,” he said. “Who knows? One day, she may even leave the postern gate open and we can infiltrate the castle before they know it is happening. It will be too late by the time they realize we have come and Wybren will again be ours without a good deal of bloodshed.”
Aeron nodded, feeling calmer than he had moments earlier. Adan had successfully manipulated him into believing this was the right course of action.
“Then summon ap Hywel,” he said. “I would speak with Glynn about this situation and our plan to remedy it. If we cannot do it with force, then we shall do it with subversion. That ought to make him happy. He and I shall go to Wybren together and we shall make the Saesneg an offer he cannot refuse. But if he has taken Juliandra’s innocence, I shall demand amobr.”
He was speaking of the traditional compensation when a woman’s innocence was lost, marriage or otherwise. It could often be a hefty fine and, by Welsh law, the Saesneg was required to pay it unless he wanted great trouble.
Perhaps Aeron was hoping for that because in his view, the Saesneg commander of Wybren had stolen a personal possession – the woman he intended to marry.
And there was going to be hell to pay.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lord of the Sky.
It was an appropriate title considering that was exactly how Kevin felt. High in the tower of Wybren, looking over the green countryside for miles, he imagined that he was, indeed, the Lord of All.
A thousand shades of green.
Both Wales and England had that distinction, but he’d never been high enough to really see the truth of that feature. Nearly every morning since his arrival to Wybren, he’d come to this tower room to view the countryside.
It was glorious.
But he could see more than just the countryside. He could also see the entirety of Wybren, including the big outer bailey, the moat, the stables, the kitchens, and the crowded inner bailey. The only part of the castle he couldn’t see was a corner of the wall blocked off by the great hall.
Otherwise, much like God, he could see everything.
This morning, he could see something in particular that had his attention. He could see Juliandra down in the kitchen yard, standing over a big, iron cauldron that was bubbling over an open flame. He knew it was bubbling because he could see the steam, wispy white tendrils reaching into the air and then disappearing. Juliandra wasn’t tending to it, but she was instructing those who were.
Frankly, he couldn’t remember what it was like at Wybren before she came.
It had been two weeks since the woman had come into his life. Two weeks of watching her take over the castle for the most part in her gentle yet firm way, two weeks of watching the servants eagerly succumb to her direction, two weeks of watching her charm nearly everyone at Wybren, him included.
She was becoming a fixture.
And he was coming to feel incredibly guilty.
She was holding up her end of the bargain. She was doing as she was told, not making any attempt to escape, and answering any questions Kevin had about the land or the people. She’d done everything he had asked and when it was all over, he couldn’t do what he’d promised to do. He couldn’t release her father to her alive. Certainly, she’d get the body, so technically her father would be released, but Kevin knew that wasn’t what she expected.