Here Be Dragons

by Sharon Kay Penman

  Morgan pressed a crucifix into Llewelyn’s hand. “Come with me to the chapel. I’ll say a Mass for her soul, and afterward, we’ll talk…”

  Llewelyn looked at the crucifix, let it drop into the rushes. Turning away from Morgan, from them all, he walked rapidly across the hall.

  Unlike Baldwin, who’d been listening in utter bafflement, Stephen had grasped enough for appalled understanding. He took a quick step toward the door, but Ednyved caught his arm.

  “No,” he said. “Let him be. There is nothing any man can say now that will ease the pain. I know; I did lose my wife in childbed, too.”

  Morgan retrieved the crucifix. “It is God’s will,” he said, sounding very tired, and Ednyved turned upon him with something much like anger.

  “I can tell you, Father, that is but little comfort to a man who’s just lost his wife!”

  “It is all we do have, Ednyved.” Morgan’s grey eyes met Ednyved’s brown ones, held them steadily. “I know Llewelyn, better even than you do. All his life he has always gotten what he wanted, has shrugged at obstacles that would have daunted other men. It has been his strength, that utter assurance, the certainty that he can shape his own destiny. But you see, he’s never learned to deal with defeat. He’s never had to—until now.”

  Ednyved nodded. “Yes,” he said softly. “You do understand.”

  The air was cool and damp against his face. Llewelyn slid from the saddle. The sky was no longer visible, stars hidden by leafy clouds of oak, birch, and hazel. Here was no woodland quiet; the night echoed with the white-water sounds of river raging against rock. Llewelyn could see a ghostly gleam of white through the trees as the cliffs rose up above the bank. The roaring was louder now. Rhaeadr Eywnnol, his people called it, the Foaming Fall. Even at midday the water was always dark near the rocks, lightening to a paler green in the shallows. Now it was the blackest of blacks, faintly silvered by moonlight. Above the pool surged the River Llugwy, spilling down onto the rocks in a wild, white cascade of foam.

  Llewelyn did not know how long he stood there, scant inches from the cliff. Instinct alone had drawn him to Rhaeadr Eywnnol, where he’d so often come with Tangwystl, just as instinct had guided him during those hours alone on the heights of Moel Siabod. He had no memory of where he’d been, merely a blurred awareness of time passing, darkness blotting out the light. There was only numbness, an inability to accept Morgan’s words as true. Tangwystl was dead. He knew that. And yet how could she not be waiting for him at Aberffraw? How could she be gone forever from his life?

  Exhaustion at last led him back to Dolwyddelan Castle. They were watching for him; the drawbridge was lowered by the time he rode up the north slope, and a groom was waiting to take his stallion. He crossed the bailey, noting with dull surprise that the sky showed pale grey along the horizon. Mounting the steps into the keep, he all but stumbled over his son.

  “Gruffydd? Gruffydd, lad, what are you doing out here?”

  The boy blinked sleepily, looked about him as if he, too, wondered why he was not in bed. His face was puffy, streaked with dirt from the stairs. “I was waiting for you, Papa.”

  Lifting Gruffydd in his arms, Llewelyn carried him into the keep. Rushlights burned in wall sconces, the bed coverlets were turned back, a large flagon of mead and a loaf of manchet bread had been set out on the table. But the chamber was empty; the servants who normally slept on pallets were nowhere to be seen. Mead and solitude—all his friends could think to offer him.

  “Sit beside me, Gruffydd. There is something I must tell you…about your mother.”

  Gruffydd had Tangwystl’s green eyes; they were, Llewelyn now saw, swollen and rimmed in red. “Uncle Rhys told me, Papa, told me Mama is dead.”

  Llewelyn touched the boy’s cheek, stroked his hair. “You understand what that means, lad?”

  Gruffydd nodded. “That I will not see her anymore.” Tears escaped his lashes, smudged a grimy path down his face. “Uncle Rhys said Mama’s soul has gone to God. But…but when my dog died, Papa, you buried him in the ground. Will Mama be buried, too? I do not want her buried, Papa, do not want her in the ground…”

  “Oh, Christ…” Llewelyn stumbled to his feet, backed into the table. Gruffydd had, with those few words, made Tangwystl’s death real at last. The merciful numbness, the stunned sense of disbelief gave way before the image now burning into his brain—Tangwystl covered with dirt, lying alone under cold, dark earth, Tangwystl who’d so loved light and summer warmth.

  The flagon rocked as he bumped the table, and his fingers closed of their own accord around the handle. The earthenware jug shattered on impact against the hearthstones, scattered clay fragments into the rushes. The flames sputtered and hissed; fingers of fire shot upward, feeding upon the sudden surge of air.

  Gruffydd still sat upon the bed, staring wide-eyed at the wreckage strewn about the floor. And then he scrambled down, ran to Llewelyn. “Do not cry, Papa, please…”

  Llewelyn knelt, and Gruffydd wrapped his arms around his father’s neck, sobbed into his shoulder. “Hush, lad, hush. I did not mean to frighten you.” Gruffydd’s tears were wet upon Llewelyn’s face; his son’s breath, hot and gasping, rasped against his ear. “It is all right to weep for her, Gruffydd. But the pain will ease, I promise you…” And in seeking to comfort his stricken son, Llewelyn finally found a small measure of comfort for himself.

  12

  Rouen, Normandy

  June 1202

  “When do you depart for Fontevrault Abbey, Joanna?”

  “At week’s end, Papa said.” Joanna sat on the bed, began to brush her stepmother’s long, silky hair. “Will you tell me about her, Isabelle?”

  “About Eleanor? What could I add that you have not long since heard by now?”

  “But I have not…heard that much, I mean. People rarely tell me about scandals,” Joanna said regretfully.

  Isabelle needed no further coaxing. “You do know, of course, that she was the greatest heiress of her time, Duchess of Aquitaine and Countess of Poitou. So great a marital prize was soon taken, and when she was fifteen, she became Queen of France. They say Louis doted upon her, could deny her nothing, even to allowing her to accompany him on crusade.”

  “In truth?” Joanna asked, having learned the hard way to be rather dubious of Isabelle’s more extravagant claims, and Isabelle crossed herself with a dramatic flourish.

  “Upon the soul of Blessed Mary, ever Virgin, I swear it so. And whilst in the Holy Land, she did bring great scandal to her name. Her Uncle Raymond was Prince of Antioch, a most handsome man only eight years older than she. Eleanor had not seen him since childhood, and he welcomed her right lovingly…too much so, men thought. Whilst none can prove they did bed together, it is known that Eleanor told Louis she wanted to end their marriage. But he was still besotted with her, had her taken from Antioch by force!

  “Theirs had always been a marriage of fire and milk. Eleanor was once overheard to say she’d thought to marry a King, but found she’d married a monk! The Pope sought to reconcile them, but when Eleanor gave birth to a second daughter, even Louis began to think their union was not blessed in the eyes of God. And then, in the fall of 1151, Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy, came to the French court. Eleanor was eleven years older than he, but still surpassingly beautiful. We do not know what passed between them, but as soon as Henry left Paris, Eleanor again besought Louis to annul their marriage. This time he agreed, and the marriage was declared invalid in March 1152. She at once withdrew to her own lands in Poitou, and there stunned all of Christendom by taking Henry Plantagenet as her husband.

  “Louis would never have let her go had he suspected her intent, would rather have seen her wed to the Devil, so deeply did he fear Henry’s ambitions. And with cause. With Eleanor’s backing, Henry pushed his claim to the English crown, and within three years of their marriage, Eleanor became the only woman ever to wear the crowns of both France and England.”

  Joanna was, as usual, proving to be
a highly satisfactory audience, and Isabelle plunged ahead, scarcely pausing for breath. “In fifteen years as wife to Louis, Eleanor had given him but two daughters. But as Queen of England, she bore Henry a rich crop, eight children in fourteen years. Four healthy sons she gave Henry; what king could ask for more?”

  “How, then, did she fall out of favor with Henry?”

  “I’d say, rather, that Henry fell out of favor with her! He’d never been faithful, but that is a wife’s lot, and she’d turned a blind eye to his straying. Rosamond Clifford, however, could not be ignored. He brought Rosamond into his bed, even to his table, honored her as if she were Queen, not concubine. Most husbands are more discreet than that, praise God, for the truth of it is, Joanna, that even if a man sets up his harlot right in the keep, there is little his wife can do about it. But Eleanor…Eleanor was not like other women; when Henry shamed her so, she left him, withdrew to her own Poitou, and raised the standard of rebellion against him!”

  Joanna had been listening, openmouthed. Indeed, her grandmother was not like other women! “What happened then?” she prompted, as if listening to some improbable minstrel’s tale.

  “John was just a little lad, but their other sons were well nigh grown, and they sided with Eleanor. So, too, did Louis, the French King, who was only too eager to turn Henry’s own sons against him. In the fighting that followed, Henry ravaged Eleanor’s lands, took her prisoner. She was,” Isabelle said with relish, “not waiting meekly by the hearth for capture, but had dressed as a man and was seeking to escape into Anjou. Henry sent her back to England under guard, imprisoned her in Salisbury Tower, kept her closely held until his death…nigh on sixteen years, Joanna.”

  “Oh, no!” Joanna had utterly forgotten these were events from a long-gone past; her sympathy for Eleanor, the captive Queen, was as immediate as it was unlawful. She knew she should feel only disapproval toward a wayward wife, a rebel Queen, but she was aware, instead, of a sharp, piercing regret, an ache for that wild spirit caged at last within Salisbury Tower.

  “They were bitter years for Henry, too,” Isabelle conceded, “years of strife with his sons. Henry, the eldest-born, died of a bloody flux. Geoffrey was killed in a tournament in France, leaving his wife with child, that wretched boy Arthur who now gives John such grief. Richard allied himself with Louis’ son Philip, and between them they brought Henry to bay, forced him to accept their terms for peace. He died days later, muttering, so they say, ‘Shame upon a conquered King.’”

  But Joanna’s imagination was still fired by Salisbury Tower. “What of Eleanor?”

  “Oh, Richard at once dispatched William Marshal to free her. They were always close; when Richard was taken captive by the Holy Roman Emperor, she labored day and night to raise his ransom.”

  “Have you ever met her, Isabelle?”

  “Yes, two years ago. John took me to Fontevrault soon after our marriage. She was most generous, dowered me with the cities of Niort and Saintes. But I confess I am ever so thankful that she divides her time between Poitiers and Fontevrault, that she dwells not at John’s court!”

  Joanna had heard few fables as enthralling as this factual account of a flesh-and-blood woman, her own kindred. But she had noted one strange omission in Isabelle’s narrative. “But where was Papa in all this, Isabelle? Did he not help to raise the ransom, too?”

  Isabelle laughed. “Oh, indeed! He and Philip pledged one hundred thousand silver marks—if the Emperor would but hold Richard for yet another year. Does that shock you? It should not; you know John loved Richard not.”

  Joanna nodded slowly. While her father spoke but rarely of his family, he did occasionally relate sardonic stories about his brother, stories that were far from flattering to Richard: how, when he and the Saracen Prince Saladin failed to come to terms over the ransom of prisoners at Acre, Richard had given the command to slaughter them all, some twenty-five hundred captives; how it had cost every man in England one-fourth of his year’s income to pay Richard’s ransom; how, when Issac, the Emperor of Cyprus, had surrendered to Richard, he’d done so on the promise that he would not be put in irons, only to have Richard fetter him in chains made of silver.

  “Papa had no reason to love Richard,” Joanna said defensively. “He was not a good King. Papa is a better one.”

  “I can guess who taught you that!” Isabelle teased.

  “And do you find fault with it, Isabelle?”

  Isabelle turned a startled face toward the door, said hastily, “Of course I do not, John! I think you’re a far more able King than your brother; surely you do know that, my love?”

  Joanna waited as Isabelle crossed to John, sought to placate him with a long, lingering kiss. Then she, too, rose, moved to greet her father.

  “Isabelle was telling me about your lady mother, Papa,” she explained, watching him all the while with anxious eyes. Never had she seen him so tense, so quick to take offense as he’d been in recent weeks. Since the spring, since the outbreak of war with France.

  Watching unhappily as her father’s nerves frayed under the dark strains of the coming campaign, Joanna sought to cheer him in small ways, engaging him in talk of his cherished falcons, memorizing a verse he’d much admired, obeying his every whim with the alacrity of a command. But all her efforts had so far gone for naught. She knew her father to be deeply troubled, and every night she prayed for God to smite his enemies, Philip, King of the French, and the youth to whom Isabelle always referred as “that wretch Arthur.”

  Three years ago, when her father had claimed the crown, Joanna had been too young to realize how close a thing it had been, his prevailing over Arthur. Now she understood all too well. The Angevin Empire remained dangerously divided over the succession, with England and Normandy favoring John, and the barons of Brittany, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine preferring Arthur. Time had not reconciled them to John, and Arthur, Breton-born, was casting a long shadow indeed. He was fifteen now, old enough to assert his own claims to what he’d been taught was his birthright, and he had a valuable ally in the calculating King of France. Just as he’d once sought to advance his own interests by turning Richard against Henry and, later, John against Richard, Philip now saw in Arthur the means of John’s downfall. In May he’d accepted Arthur’s oath of homage, had betrothed his five-year-old daughter to the young Duke of Brittany. And that meant, Joanna knew, the stakes for her father were all or nothing. A loss to Philip and Arthur would cost him his crown, his realm, his life.

  She hastened now to pour a cup of wine, offered it to him with exaggerated care. “What is she like, Papa…your lady mother?”

  John was quiet for so long that she thought he was not going to reply. “A legend,” he said softly. “A living legend…like my illustrious brother, the Lion-Heart.” His eyes, shadowed by weariness, shone with a hard green glitter.

  “You want to win her favor, Joanna? Talk to her of Richard, then.” He’d drained the cup already, set it down with a thud. “‘I have lost the staff of my age, the light of my eyes.’ Those were her words, what she cried out upon his capture. Yes, talk to her of Richard.”

  Joanna did not know how to answer him. Nor, she saw, did Isabelle. They looked at each other helplessly.

  “I would rather talk to her of you, Papa,” she ventured, and John gave a sudden laugh, a staccato sound that had in it little of mirth.

  “I’d not advise that, lass. My mother has never been one to feign interest where she has none.”

  Joanna’s eyes filled with tears. She was aware by now that he was drunk, and that only made her all the more uneasy, for he generally had a good head for wine.

  Isabelle, no less at a loss than Joanna, reached out to steady his hand as he refilled the cup. “Come to bed, beloved,” she coaxed, knowing no other comfort to offer, knowing only what he’d taught her.

  He touched her cheek, brushed aside the bright hair falling free about her face. “You’re such a child, Isabelle, a lovely child. I do not want you tonight. Go away. Both
of you, go away.”

  Isabelle started to speak, and he put his fingers to her mouth. “I would not take out my demons on you, Isabelle. But if you stay, I shall. Take Joanna and go.”

  She nodded, retreated toward the door, pulling Joanna after her. In the antechamber she sank down, white-faced, upon the nearest coffer. “Mayhap I should not have left him…Joanna, Joanna, was I wrong? Should I have stayed?”

  Joanna was accustomed to Isabelle asking her questions better put to an adult, but that did not make the answers come any easier. “I do not know,” she confessed. “I never saw Papa like that before…”

  “He’s afraid,” Isabelle said, almost inaudibly. “God knows, he has reasons enough for fear. So many enemies. So few he can trust.” She shivered. “He’s afraid, Joanna…and so alone.”

  The Benedictine abbey of Fontevrault was situated in the province of Anjou, not far from the crossing of the Rivers Vienne and Loire. It was a rich land, famed for its vineyards, lush and green in the summer sun, and Joanna’s journey from Rouen should have been a pleasant one. But the threat of war overhung the countryside, hovering like woodsmoke along the horizon, and Joanna soon discovered that distance did little to ease her fears for her father’s safety. She was nervous, moreover, about meeting her grandmother.

  Eleanor was entering her eighty-first year, an age no less vast to Joanna than that of the ancient, gnarled oaks shadowing their path. Joanna’s craving for family, for belonging, was the mainspring of her being, but as Fontevrault Abbey came into sight, she found herself beset by misgivings. She had no right to her father’s name, was accepted at court only on his sufferance. Would Eleanor welcome a grandchild born of sin?

  The room was in shadows, shielded from the sun by heavy linen hangings. Joanna groped her way forward, blindly, knelt before the woman sitting in an oaken, upright chair, much like a throne.