Here Be Dragons

by Sharon Kay Penman

  Now he glanced about the hall, at the other men: Ranulf de Blundeville, Earl of Chester; Thomas Erdington, Sheriff of Shropshire; Lord Robert Corbet and his son Thomas; Robert de Montalt. There was no one else in the hall; Chester had cleared it of retainers, servants, and men-at-arms. Richard knew why, knew Chester was seeking to make Gwenwynwyn’s capitulation as painless as possible. No easy task, given the surprise they were about to spring upon him. But he gave Chester credit for trying; tact was an attribute Richard appreciated.

  Richard had only recently joined the knights of Chester’s household, but the past weeks had caused him to revise his earlier unfavorable opinion of the Earl. He was not a particularly likable man, was of a reserved and taciturn nature, but he was an astute judge of character, shrewd and surprisingly subtle, and he had soon won Richard’s respect. Richard knew this coming confrontation with Gwenwynwyn had to be awkward for Chester; the two men had once been allies. But nothing showed in Chester’s face or demeanor. There was in his manner only the dispassionate resolve of a man set upon doing his duty, upon carrying out the King’s command…however little he might like it.

  Richard wondered if the Corbets shared Chester’s reluctance to do what John wanted done. Theirs was an even more awkward position, for Gwenwynwyn had taken Robert Corbet’s daughter to wife. But they’d voiced no protests, raised no objections. With the fate of William de Braose still uppermost in all their minds, few of John’s barons were eager to incur his displeasure in this, the tenth year of his reign.

  “Richard?” Thomas Corbet was looming over him. Without waiting to be asked, he sprawled down beside Richard in the window seat. Richard retreated as far as he was able, but not in time to avoid Thomas’s elbow in his ribs. He was not comfortable with such close physical proximity, even with those he liked, and he did not like Thomas Corbet. For all his self-professed contempt for Llewelyn, Thomas was showing himself quite willing to trade upon Llewelyn’s marital connection with the crown and his own tenuous connection with the Welsh Prince to establish an unwelcome familiarity with Llewelyn’s brother-in-law, and his sensitivity was such that he was utterly oblivious to Richard’s measured recoil.

  “Have you had further word on de Braose’s whereabouts?”

  Richard was tempted to deny Thomas the pleasure of being one of the first to know. But all would know soon enough, and he said grudgingly, “De Braose and his family fled to Ireland on Thursday last, are seeking refuge with his son-in-law, the Lord of Meath.”

  “Indeed? And will your lord father the King now…” But Richard was spared further conversation by the arrival of Gwenwynwyn. Richard had never met the Prince of Powys, but he was quite curious about this man who was Llewelyn’s avowed and embittered rival, and he watched with considerable interest as Gwenwynwyn was escorted into the hall. He was a good ten years older than Llewelyn, appeared to be in his middle to late forties; a short, dark-complexioned man, stocky and sinewy, he bore a surprising resemblance to the swarthy, thickset Earl of Chester. And like Chester, Gwenwynwyn had black eyes ablaze with keen intelligence, sharp with suspicion.

  Chester was advancing to greet him. Gwenwynwyn’s eyes flicked past the Earl, encompassed the hall. “I was summoned to meet with King John,” he said, in fluent Norman-French. “Why is he not here?”

  “The King’s Grace has instructed me to act on his behalf.” Chester’s voice was neutral, matter-of-fact. “He has been grievously affronted by your recent incursions into Norman lands in South Wales. No man, be he Welsh or Norman, may violate the King’s Peace with impunity. The King has therefore directed me to take you into the custody of the crown, to detain you here in Shrewsbury Castle.”

  Richard saw the looks of incredulous outrage upon the faces of Gwenwynwyn’s Welsh followers, saw hands drop to sword hilts. Gwenwynwyn looked no less outraged, but he showed now that he resembled Chester in more than coloring, showed himself to be the same sort of hardheaded realist. Having walked trustingly into John’s trap, he could accept defeat with as much dignity as he could muster, or he could cast his life away in a gesture of grand defiance. He chose the former, snapped a command to his men, and then turned back to face Chester.

  “I came here in good faith,” he said, with such scalding contempt that suddenly none of the Normans could meet his eyes; even Thomas Corbet looked somewhat discomfited.

  “You came here to answer charges brought against you by Marcher lords like Peter Fitz Herbert, that you’ve been raiding Norman manors, running off livestock, and burning crops,” Chester said, quite flatly, and Gwenwynwyn’s lip curled.

  “Yi ci a fyner ei grogi dywedir ei fod yn lladd defaid,” he said scornfully.

  Even Marcher border lords like the Corbets had never bothered to learn Welsh; Chester alone spoke the language. It was he who translated for the benefit of his companions. “‘The dog we would hang is said to devour sheep.’ If, by that, you mean the King has contrived an excuse to seize your lands…”

  “What else would I think? I would like to know, though, where this pretty plot was first hatched…Westminster? Or Aber?”

  “Aber? You think the King is obliging Llewelyn ab Iorwerth in this?” Chester shook his head, even smiled faintly, as though at Gwenwynwyn’s naïve misreading of English aims. “Your suspicions are understandable, but unwarranted. I assure you the King has no desire to see Powys fall under Llewelyn’s control. Royal couriers are even now on their way to Gwynedd and to the courts of Prince Maelgwn and Prince Rhys Gryg in South Wales, forbidding them to take advantage of your troubles with the King, telling them to keep out of Powys.”

  “And you truly think Llewelyn will heed such a command?” Gwenwynwyn was staring at them in bitter disbelief. “You fools. You poor bloody fools. It would be laughable, in truth—if I were not to be the one to pay the price for your stupidity!”

  No one answered him. Chester gestured abruptly and men-at-arms emerged from behind the screen, moved to escort the captive Welsh Prince to his confinement. In the silence that followed, Thomas Corbet stepped toward Chester, began to assure the Earl that he knew Llewelyn well, that he would not dare to defy the King’s command. No one asked Richard for his opinion, and he did not volunteer it. He admittedly did not know Llewelyn as Thomas Corbet did, had only met him twice. But he suspected that Gwenwynwyn knew Llewelyn better than any of them, and if Gwenwynwyn was right, he thought uneasily, there would be Hell to pay. For his sister’s sake, he could only hope that Thomas was right and the Welshman wrong.

  Greying dawn light was illuminating the snow-drifted peaks of Eryri, turning the crystalline lakes of the high mountain reaches to glistening blue ice, bringing day to the River Lledr valley and the castle standing stark sentinel in the shadow of Moel Siabod.

  Joanna stood by the hearth in their bedchamber, watching her husband dress. As always when he was in a rush, Llewelyn lacked patience, preferring not to summon his squires to do what he could more quickly do himself. It was cold and Joanna pulled her bedrobe close, sought with chilled fingers to fasten the belt over her swollen abdomen.

  “I still cannot believe it,” she said when she could keep silent no longer. “I cannot believe you’d do this, leave me when my time is nigh. The babe is due in six weeks, Llewelyn. You would truly leave me when I do need you the most…and for what? A bloody border raid!”

  “Joanna, you are not hearing me, not listening to what I say. I know you are distraught, and I am sorry for that, love. But a chance like this will not come again. With Gwenwynwyn caged in Shrewsbury, all of Powys lies open for the taking. You think Maelgwn and Rhys Gryg are not planning to carve it up between them even as we talk? You know what I want for Wales, know what it would mean to hold both Gwynedd and Powys. Can you truly expect me to forfeit such an opportunity? I cannot do that, Joanna, not even for you.”

  “My father will not forgive you,” she said, saw him shrug.

  “I expect I can live with that,” he said, and his indifference only served to fan Joanna’s fury all the hi
gher. In the night she’d clung to him, put aside her pride and confessed her fear, her need to have him with her when the babe was born. And he’d been very tender, very loving. But he’d not weakened in his resolve to depart on the morrow, to lead an army into Powys, and when she said her father would not forgive him, she was in fact warning that she might not be able to forgive him either.

  Llewelyn buckled his scabbard, felt the familiar weight of a sword at his left hip, sheathed a razor-edged dagger, and then crossed the chamber, put his hands on Joanna’s shoulders.

  “You say the babe is not due for six weeks, breila. That means there still will be time enough. Once I’m entrenched in Powys, neither Maelgwn nor Rhys Gryg is likely to mount any sort of challenge to my suzerainty. If all goes as I expect, I’ll leave Ednyved in temporary command and come back for the birth.” He smiled at her, a smile to break her heart, said, “I promise, love, promise to be back in time,” and she wrenched free.

  “Think you that I’m a child to be mollified with sugared words, placated with promises? You’re not God, cannot give me an assurance like that. How can you be sure the babe will not come early, before its time? That you’d not be delayed by foul weather, reversals of the campaign? Or that you’d not get so caught up in that campaign, in the killing and the conquest and whatever it is that makes men lust so after war that you’ll forget all else? Who is going to remind you that you’ve a wife in need of you, a wife about to bear your child?”

  “Joanna, I have to do this.”

  “Was that what you told Tangwystl, too?”

  Joanna at once regretted it; there were taunts that not even the most justifiable anger could excuse. She knew Llewelyn’s grieving had been all the greater for not having been with Tangwystl when she died, and she said hastily, “I am sorry.”

  “You damned well should be!” He turned away from her, strode toward the door, only to stop with his hand on the latch. Wheeling about, he came back, reached out, and jerked her toward him. He was not gentle, pulled her into an angry, ungainly embrace, made awkward by the unwieldy burden of her pregnancy. “I will be back, Joanna.”

  She wanted to fling his grudging promise in his face, to say she’d see him damned and in Hell ere she’d beg him again to stay. Instead she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, for a moment buried her face in his shoulder. But there was no healing in their embrace. Llewelyn stepped back, again turned toward the door.

  “Llewelyn.”

  He paused, but she saw he was impatient to be gone, his mind already upon Powys and plans of conquest. “Take care of yourself,” she said, and even to her own ears, her voice sounded strange, made flat and toneless by her fear. “Take care,” she repeated bleakly. “I would look dreadful in black.”

  Upon arriving at Aber, Richard was disheartened to be told that his sister was awaiting her confinement at Dolwyddelan Castle, more than a day’s journey to the south. But the winter was so far proving to be a mild one, and the passes were still clear of snow. With Welsh guides who knew every rock and crevice of the Eryri heights, they encountered no difficulties, rode into the bailey of Dolwyddelan soon after dark on November 18.

  This was his first visit to Dolwyddelan, and Richard was looking about with interest as he followed Dylan, Joanna’s seneschal, up the stone outer stairs into the keep. But as soon as he stepped across the threshold, he sensed that something was very wrong. Morgan ap Bleddyn, Branwen, and Alison were clustered awkwardly to one side, and barely glanced his way. In the center of the chamber Joanna and Gruffydd were standing. At sight of his sister, Richard felt a throb of alarm; she looked ill, eyes hollowed and swollen, skin showing a greyish pallor even in the warming, reddish glow of hearth fire. She had yet to notice him, had all her attention focused upon her stepson. Richard spoke no Welsh, but it was obvious that the conversation was a strained, labored one. Joanna paused frequently, fumbled for words, and at last switched into French, saying in a very low voice, “What more can I say than that I am sorry?”

  Gruffydd had been staring past her into the hearth. At that, he raised his head, and Richard took an instinctive step forward. He did not dismiss the passions of the very young with indulgent amusement. At nineteen, he was still young enough himself to remember; he knew that a child’s hatred might be even more intense than that of a man grown, for the man’s emotions were likely to be tempered with painful adult experiences in the arts of compromise and conciliation. The child’s passions were purer and more primitive, and the hatred of a child could easily get away from him, take on dimensions and depths he could not hope to control. Such a hatred was now naked upon Gruffydd’s face, a helpless, soul-scarring hatred for his father’s wife.

  Gruffydd somehow fought back the words rising up to choke him, whirled and bolted for the door. Joanna signaled to Morgan, and the priest swiftly followed the boy from the chamber. It was only then that she saw Richard. “Oh, Richard, thank God!” she cried, with such an intensity of emotion that what was meant as a welcome became an involuntary confession of despair.

  Richard was not normally demonstrative, but he came forward quickly, gave her a prolonged hug. Waiting until they were together in the window seat nearest the bed, he watched her fidget with the lap robe Branwen had tucked around her, and finally said quietly, “Are you not going to tell me what that was about?”

  She did not want to tell him; that was evident. She fidgeted a while longer, lavishing undue attention upon the small dog curled up beside them. “Poor Sugar, she cannot comprehend why I no longer have a lap for her to sit in.” She sighed, then said with obvious reluctance, “I’ll tell you. But you must understand how it has been. My nerves are so on the raw these days that I find myself always on the edge of anger, much too quick to flare up, to take offense. But I cannot seem to help it. In truth, I have been feeling wretched for months with this babe, even before Llewelyn left me, and these five weeks that he’s been gone…well, I’d not ever want to relive them, Richard, not even for the surety of my soul!”

  He waited without prompting, for he was that rarity, a Plantagenet with patience to spare, and Joanna sighed again. “This morn Sugar ran off, disappeared without a trace. I was so fearful for her, sent servants out to search, to no avail. Then…then the child of one of the grooms told me that he’d seen Sugar down by the riverbank, ere he knew she was missing. And he said she was with Gruffydd.”

  “Ah, Joanna, surely you did not?”

  Joanna flushed. “Yes, I did,” she admitted, with a trace of defiance. “I accused Gruffydd of chasing Sugar away.” From the way she averted her eyes, Richard suspected she’d accused Gruffydd of even worse. He said nothing, and she stroked the dog until the heat had faded from her face. “I was in the wrong, I know that. I had no proof, should not have…but I did, and within the hour, Sugar came back of her own accord, muddy and matted and unhurt. I apologized to Gruffydd, but as you saw, he will not forgive me. I knew he would not, not the way he cherishes a grudge!”

  “Joanna, you can hardly blame him for being hurt and resentful. How old is he now, not thirteen till the spring, no? Well, you have to—”

  “Richard, you do not understand. I should not have said what I did, would to God I had not. But you do not know what a wretched, hateful boy he is. Believe me, he’s quite capable of harming a dog out of spite!”

  “Have you ever talked to Llewelyn about him?”

  “No. At first I thought I should be capable of handling him myself. As Llewelyn’s wife, I owed it to him to make peace with his children; a man should not be burdened with problems of the hearth. And…and it would serve for naught, would only cause Llewelyn hurt. With the girls, I think I’ve finally managed to gain their trust. Even Gwladys. I asked her to stand as Elen’s godmother, and since then she’s been slowly—ever so slowly—warming toward me. But Gruffydd has given me naught but grief from the moment of my arrival at Aber. I detest him, Richard, I truly do. He’s wild and perverse and dangerously unpredictable, has none of Llewelyn’s strengths
and every damned one of his failings!”

  Richard glanced up sharply. “Do you want to talk about that—about Llewelyn’s failings?”

  Joanna hesitated, and then confessed, “Yes, I think I do. We had a truly dreadful quarrel when he left, by far the worst of our marriage. I was so angry with him, Richard; I still am. He knows how fearful I’ve been about this baby, he knows, but it was not enough to keep him with me. That’s hard for me to understand, harder still to forgive.”

  “We heard he was encountering little resistance, found Powys was his for the taking. Is that true?”

  Joanna nodded. “Llewelyn has few peers on the battlefield,” she said, with perverse pride in that which gave her so much anxiety. “Men say he is a brilliant commander.”

  That, Richard thought grimly, was precisely the trouble. “Think you that he’ll stop at the borders of Powys?”

  “You have not heard, then? He has crossed into Ceredigion, into the lands of Maelgwn ap Rhys, has pushed as far south as the River Ystwyth.”

  “Jesú! But how can he hope to hold it? Maelgwn is no man to yield up what is his. I know the man, Joanna, met him often when I served in South Wales with William de Braose’s son. His past is a bloody one, includes the murder of a brother and the imprisonment of his own father. He makes a bad enemy.”

  “I know. Ednyved’s wife Gwenllian is sister to Maelgwn and Rhys Gryg; they paid a visit to our court last year. After meeting them, I found it easier to understand why Gwenllian is such a bitch! But to answer your question, Llewelyn does not mean to hold Ceredigion for himself. He means to turn most of it over to Maelgwn’s nephews. They’ve been feuding with their uncles for years, are more than willing to acknowledge Llewelyn as their overlord in return for his backing against Maelgwn.”