Falls the Shadow: A Novel

by Sharon Kay Penman

  “Lln, Powys!” Senena spat out the words. “What are they but crumbs from his table? He has cheated Gruffydd of a crown, has cursed his nights with dreams of Deganwy, and there can be no forgiveness for him. Not from Gruffydd, not from me, and not from you. To give love to Llewelyn is to betray your father.” She stepped back. “You’re old enough now to understand that,” she said, and turned away without another word, left him alone.

  Gruffydd, his wife, and children reached Llewelyn’s palace at Aber soon after dusk on Monday, Epiphany Eve. As they entered the great hall, an expectant hush fell. Gruffydd moved toward the dais, greeted his father with brittle courtesy. If Gruffydd’s grievance lay open and bleeding, Llewelyn’s was an internal wound. His voice was even, his face impassive as he said, “You and your family are ever welcome at my court.”

  As Llelo started forward, Owain grabbed his arm, murmured against his ear, “Remember, not a word to Llewelyn or his Norman-French slut about Papa’s bad dreams!”

  Llelo jerked his arm away, and then turned at the sound of his name, turned with reluctance for he’d recognized her voice. The Lady Joanna, his grandfather’s consort. Sister to the English King Henry, daughter to King John of evil fame, the mother of Davydd. The woman Owain called the “Norman-French slut.” She was smiling at Llelo, making him welcome. She’d never been anything but kind to him, but he could not respond to her kindness; he dare not. She was his father’s enemy, the foreign witch who’d cast a sexual spell upon his grandfather, brought about Gruffydd’s ruin. Llelo knew the litany of his House by heart. That the witch herself was soft-spoken, friendly, and fair to look upon only made him fear her all the more, for he suspected that he, too, could fall prey to her alien charms.

  “Ah, there is my namesake.” His grandfather had left the dais, was moving toward him. “Tell me, Llelo, do you want your New Year’s gift now? Of course if you’d rather, we can wait till the morrow?” Llewelyn grinned at the boy, and Llelo grinned back.

  “Now,” he said, while trying to ignore Owain’s accusing grey eyes, eyes that brought a hot flush to his face, shame for a sin he could not disavow.

  In England, dinner was the main meal of the day, served between ten and eleven in the forenoon. In Wales, however, there was but one meal, eaten in the evening, and Gruffydd and his family had arrived just in time for the festive repast: roast goose with Spanish rice, porpoise frumenty, stewed apples, venison pasty, a rissole of beef marrow and lamprey, sugared plums, wafers, even an elaborate English-style subtlety, a dramatic marzipan sculpture of a storm-tossed galley. When Llewelyn suggested, tongue-in-cheek, that this might depict the English ship of state, the best proof of the eased tensions between the two peoples was that his English guests laughed in unfeigned amusement, and afterward, Llelo overheard some of the Marcher border lords agreeing that England was indeed a ship without a firm hand at the helm, for King Henry was a good Christian, a loving husband, but a weak King.

  After the trestle tables were cleared away, Davydd Benfras, Llewelyn’s court bard, entertained for his Prince’s guests, and then there was dancing. Having succeeded in eluding Owain’s watchful eye, Llelo was wandering about the hall, admiring the bright silks and velvets, enjoying the cheerful chaos. At his father’s manor, the English were not welcome; Gruffydd did not dine with his enemies. But Aber on Epiphany Eve was a crucible in which the Welsh and their Norman-French neighbors could meet as friends, at least for the evening.

  Llewelyn’s daughters had married into the English nobility, and three of them were at Aber this night: Marared and her husband, Walter Clifford; Gwladys, Gruffydd’s favorite sister, and her Marcher lord, Ralph de Mortimer; Elen, Countess of Chester, and John the Scot, Earl of Chester, Llewelyn’s most powerful English ally. Although she’d been wed to John the Scot for fourteen years, Elen’s marriage was still barren, and she’d been forced to gratify her maternal instincts by lavishing love and attention upon her young nieces and nephews. Llelo adored Elen, but his affections were tainted by guilt, for he feared that this allegiance, too, was suspect; Elen was the Lady Joanna’s daughter, Davydd’s sister.

  Someone had brought in a tame monkey, and Llelo was so captivated by its antics that he bumped into a man threading his way amidst the dancers. He recoiled, staring tongue-tied at his uncle Davydd, mortified to see he’d spilled Davydd’s drink. But Davydd took the mishap in good humor, smiled, and moved on. Llelo had never seen Davydd in a rage. The contrast between his turbulent father and his self-contained uncle could not have been greater. At age forty, Gruffydd was no longer young, but he was tall, big-boned, with all the force and vibrant color of a fire in full blaze, a man to turn heads. Llelo thought he utterly overshadowed Davydd, who was twelve years younger, six inches shorter, as dark as Gruffydd was fair, with pitch-black hair and slanting hazel eyes that revealed little, missed even less.

  Davydd had stopped to talk to his mother’s English kin, come from the King’s Christmas court at Winchester. Llelo knew them both, Richard Fitz Roy, Joanna’s half-brother, and her half-sister, the Lady Nell, Countess of Pembroke, youngest of King John’s legitimate offspring. Nell was just twenty-one to Joanna’s five and forty, and like her brother, the English King, she’d turned to Joanna for the mothering they’d never gotten from John’s Queen.

  Llelo thought the Lady Nell was as lovely as a wood nymph, but he’d often heard his mother call her a harlot. Nell had been wed in childhood to the powerful Earl of Pembroke, and when she’d been widowed in her sixteenth year, she’d impulsively taken a holy oath of chastity. Although she’d never repudiated the oath, she’d soon abandoned her homespun for soft wools and Alexandrine velvets, soon returned to her brother’s royal court, where she’d earned herself a reputation as a flirt. Llelo was old enough to know what a whore was, a bad woman, but he still could not help liking Nell’s fragrant perfumes, her lilting laugh.

  Across the hall, he saw his father, surrounded by Welsh admirers. The Marcher lords might look at Gruffydd askance, but he was popular with his own; there were many among the Welsh who thought he’d been wronged. Llelo would have gone to him, had he not noticed Owain hovering at his father’s elbow. Instead, Llelo found himself gravitating toward the dais, where his grandfather was, as always, the center of attention.

  “Say that again, John,” Llewelyn instructed, “but more slowly.”

  His son-in-law smiled, obligingly repeated, “Nu biseche ich thee.”

  Although Llewelyn spoke Welsh and Norman-French and Latin, he had never learned English. “And that means?”

  “Now beseech I thee,” John the Scot translated, adding, accurately if immodestly, “I have always had a gift for languages. In addition to my native French, I speak my father’s Gaelic, Latin, a smattering of your Welsh, and I’ve picked up some English. It does come in handy at times; English is still the tongue of the peasants, the villeins on my Cheshire manors. Shall I lesson you in English, my lord Llewelyn? What would you fancy learning?”

  “Mayhap some blood-chilling English oaths?” Llewelyn suggested, and the men laughed. So did Llelo, until he saw that Owain had joined them. He flushed, edged away from his grandfather, from his brother’s suspicious stare.

  Pausing only to retrieve his mantle, he slipped through a side door, out into the bailey. There he tilted his head back, dazzled by so many stars. His grandfather had once offered to teach him how to find his way by making use of the stars, but had never found the time. Llelo fumbled at his belt, drew forth his grandfather’s gift. The handle was ivory; the slender blade caught glints of moonlight. He’d had an eating knife, of course, but this knife was longer, sharper; with a little imagination, he could pretend it was a real dagger. Ahead lay the stables, where his true New Year’s gift awaited him, for his grandfather’s favorite alaunt bitch had whelped, and tonight he’d promised Llelo the pick of the litter, as soon as they were weaned.

  The stables were dark, quiet. Mulling over names for his new pet, Llelo did not at once realize he wasn’t alone. He wa
s almost upon them before he saw the man and woman standing together in the shadows of an empty box stall. Instinctively, he drew back, would have retreated. But they’d whirled, moved apart.

  “Llelo?” Although the voice was low, breathless, he still recognized it as Elen’s.

  “Yes,” he said, and she came toward him. The man followed her into the moonlight. He, too, was known to Llelo, and it took him but a moment to recollect the name: Robert de Quincy, a cousin of Elen’s husband.

  “I vow, Llelo, but you’d put a ferret to shame, padding about on silent cat-feet! You’re like to scare the wits out of me, God’s truth,” Elen said and laughed. Her laughter sounded strange to Llelo, high-pitched and uneven.

  “I am sorry,” he said, and she reached out, ruffled his hair.

  “No matter. But I was talking with Sir Robert on a private matter, so I’d be beholden to you, love, if you’d not mention that you saw us out here together.” She gave him a crooked smile. “It will be our secret, Llelo…agreed?”

  He nodded, hesitated, and then turned, began to retrace his steps toward the great hall. They watched him go, not daring to speak until they were sure he was safely out of earshot. Then Robert said softly, “Can he be trusted?”

  She bit her lip. “Yes. But Jesú, how I hated to do that to him!”

  He forced a smile. “You need not fret, sweetheart. What youngling does not like to be entrusted with a secret?”

  Elen still frowned. “Mayhap,” she whispered. “Mayhap…”

  Llelo had lost all interest in viewing the puppies. He did not know why he felt so uneasy, knew only that he did. He’d been proud to share his father’s secret. But he sensed that Elen’s secret was different. He loved his aunt Elen, worried that she was somehow in peril, worried, too, that he might inadvertently give her secret away. He’d never been good at keeping secrets before, but he would have to learn. He had two now that he must not betray, Papa’s and Aunt Elen’s.

  Llelo’s father had joined those gathered around Llewelyn, so Llelo could in good conscience do likewise. Llewelyn noticed his approach, welcomed him into the circle with a smile, but did not interrupt himself, having just revealed his plans to meet with Gruffydd Maelor, the new Prince of the neighboring realm of Upper Powys.

  “His father, Madog, was my cousin, a steadfast ally.” This said for the benefit of his English listeners. “He died at Martinmas, may God assoil him, and was buried at Llyn Eglwystl, the abbey you English know as Valle Crucis. That is where Ednyved and I have agreed to meet his son.”

  “And I daresay you’ll find the time to do some hunting along the way,” Joanna murmured, with the indulgent smile of a longtime wife, and Llewelyn laughed.

  “And would it not be a deed of Christian charity to feed my own men, rather than to have the poor monks empty their larders on our behalf?” Llewelyn accepted a wine cup from a servant, and his eyes strayed from Joanna, came to rest upon his eldest son. He drank, watching Gruffydd, and then said, “You have ever loved the hunt, Gruffydd. Should you like to accompany us?”

  For the span of an indrawn breath, Gruffydd looked startled, vulnerable. “No!” he said, too vehemently. “That would not be possible.”

  “As you will.” Llewelyn drank again, then felt his wife’s hand upon his arm. “What say you, breila? Should you like to come?”

  Joanna smiled, shook her head. “Alas, I’ve never shared your peculiar passion for hunting in the dead of winter!” Llelo was standing beside her, close enough to touch. She recognized the look of wistful yearning on his face; she, too, had been a solitary child. “Llewelyn…why not take Llelo in my stead?”

  Llewelyn glanced at his grandson, surprised but not at all unwilling. “Well…think you that you’re old enough for a hunt, Llelo?”

  “I’m nigh on nine, Grandpapa,” Llelo pleaded, and Llewelyn no longer teased, seeing the nakedness of the boy’s need.

  “I can think of no better companion, lad, will take you right gladly…if your lord father has no objection.”

  All eyes were now on Gruffydd. He looked at his son. The boy’s heartbreaking eagerness was painfully apparent, his mute entreaty far more poignant than begging or cajoling would have been. From the corner of his eye, Gruffydd saw his wife, knew she was silently willing him to say no.

  “I often took you hunting when you were Llelo’s age.” Llewelyn’s voice was very quiet. “You remember, Gruffydd?”

  “Yes…I remember.” Gruffydd bit back a harsh, humorless laugh. As if he could forget! “I’ll not forbid you, Llelo. The decision is yours.”

  Llelo drew a sharp, dismayed breath, for he knew that his father wanted him to refuse. Yet he knew, too, that he could not do it.

  The ten days that Llelo passed with his grandfather at the Cistercian abbey of Llyn Eglwystl were touched with magic. His grandfather had never had much time for him before; now they shared a chamber in the abbey guest house, and at night, Llelo would listen, enthralled, as Llewelyn and Ednyved reminisced, related stories of their boyhood, of a lifetime of wars with the English. Best of all, his grandfather kept his promise, took the boy hunting with him. On a cloudy, cold day in late January, a day Llelo would long remember, his had been one of the arrows that brought down a young hind, and when venison was served that night in the abbey guest hall and the infirmary, Llewelyn had announced to one and all that they were eating Llelo’s kill.

  Only one shadow marred the utter perfection of the day, Llelo’s awareness that their time together was coming to an end; there were just four days remaining until they returned to Aber. But he soon forgot all else when Ednyved began to spin a tale of Saracens, hot desert sands, and queer humped beasts called camels. Ednyved was his grandfather’s Seneschal, a lifetime companion and confidant, and one of the few Welshmen who’d seen the Holy Land. He’d returned that year from a pilgrimage to Palestine, and Llelo was spellbound by the stories he had to tell; the only bedtime tales he enjoyed more were those accounts of Llewelyn’s rise to power. He’d begun a rebellion at fourteen, had eventually wrested control of Gwynedd from his uncles in a bloody battle at the mouth of the River Conwy, and Llelo never tired of hearing about it.

  Propping himself up on his elbow, he glanced across at his grandfather’s pallet. The Cistercians were an austere order, and the Abbot did not have lavish private quarters to offer his Prince, as a Benedictine abbot could have done. Llewelyn had reassured his apologetic hosts that he was quite comfortable. He had, after all, done his share of sleeping around campfires, he’d laughed, and Llelo felt a sharp twinge of envy, yearning for the day when he, too, could sleep under the stars with a naked sword at his side. It had been some moments now since either Llewelyn or Ednyved had spoken, and he hastily sought for a conversational gambit, one that would keep sleep at bay for a while longer.

  “Did you never want to go on crusade like Lord Ednyved, Grandpapa?”

  “I thought about it, lad. But our English neighbors covet Wales too much; I never felt I could risk it.”

  “My father hates the English.”

  “He has reason, lad. He spent four years in English prisons.”

  “He did? I did not know that! When? How?”

  “I’ve told you how King John led an army into Gwynedd, how I had to send Joanna to his camp, seeking peace. When I yielded to him at Aberconwy, he compelled me to give up thirty hostages. He insisted that one of them be Gruffydd.” Llewelyn was staring into the hearth flames. After a time, he said, “He was just fifteen, and he suffered greatly at John’s hands.”

  “Do you hate the English, too, Grandpapa?”

  “I hated John. But no, I do not hate all the English. I’d hardly have found English husbands for my daughters if I did. Davydd’s wife is English, too. Of course they were marriages of policy, done for Gwynedd’s good.”

  “Was your marriage done for Gwynedd, too, Grandpapa?”

  “Indeed, lad. Joanna was the English King’s bastard daughter, just fourteen when we wed.” Llewelyn laughed suddenly. “
An appealing little lass she was, too, but so very young. I can scarce believe we’ve been wed for more than thirty years.”

  Llelo sat up on the pallet. He knew, of course, of the great scandal that had scarred his grandfather’s marriage; he’d heard his parents discuss it often enough. Six years ago the Lady Joanna had taken an English lover, and Llewelyn had caught them in his bedchamber. He’d hanged the lover, sent Joanna away in disgrace. But in time, he’d forgiven her, had created another scandal by taking her back. Llelo yearned now to ask why, did not dare.

  “Grandpapa, may I ask you a question? I do not want to vex you…”

  Llewelyn turned on his side, toward the boy. “Ask,” he said, and Llelo blurted it out in one great, breathless gulp.

  “Grandpapa, why did you choose Davydd over my father? Why did you keep him in Deganwy? Do you hate him so much?”

  “Hate him? No, Llelo.”

  A silence settled over the room. Llelo shivered, drew his blanket close. “Are you angry?”

  “No, lad. I was but thinking how best to answer you, how to make you understand. Do you see our hunting gear in yon corner? Fetch me a quiver of arrows.”

  Mystified, Llelo did. Llewelyn sat up, spilled arrows onto the bed. “Think of these arrows as the separate Welsh principalities. This first arrow is for Gwynedd. These two shall be for Upper and Lower Powys. And this one for South Wales, for Deheubarth. Now add these others for the lesser lords, those who stand by their princes.” Holding them up, he said, “Watch, lad, whilst I try to break them. There…you see? It cannot easily be done, can it? But take Gwynedd alone, take a lone arrow…” He gripped a single shaft in his fists; there was a loud crack as the wood splintered, broke in two.

  Llelo was intrigued, but uncomprehending. “I do not fully understand,” he admitted, with such obvious reluctance that Llewelyn smiled.

  “Just listen, lad; you will. You know, of course, that Welsh law divides a man’s lands up amongst his sons. But how do you divide a kingdom, Llelo? It cannot be done. In the past, our law did but lead to needless bloodshed, set brother against brother. So it was with my own family; my father was slain by his brothers. And Gwynedd was torn asunder by their wars, bled white. I could not let that happen again. I had to keep my realm whole, could not let it be broken into fragments when I died. How else could we hope to stave off English attacks? We’re at peace now with England, but it was a peace I won at sword-point, bought with blood. The moment we seem vulnerable, the English will seek to regain their conquests, and what could be more vulnerable than a land ravaged by civil war?”