Here Be Dragons

by Sharon Kay Penman

  Llewelyn could tell almost immediately that Joanna’s discomfort had been eased somewhat; her breathing was no longer so rapid and shallow, and when Branwen put a wine cup to her lips, she drank in gulps.

  Dame Rhagnell let Joanna’s skirt drop. “The bleeding has ceased,” she said triumphantly, and Llewelyn forgave her all.

  “So, too, has the pain.” There was wonder in Joanna’s voice at first, and then, returning fear. “What does that mean, Dame Rhagnell? Why have the pains stopped?”

  “It ofttimes happens after the water breaks, my lady.” The midwife had regained her professional poise, said now with calming certainty, “Soon the pangs will begin again, and when they do, the child will come quickly, and with surprising ease.”

  Whether she was lying or not, Llewelyn had no way of knowing. But Joanna was free of pain for the first time in many hours. Her queasiness had mercifully abated, too, and with Branwen’s help, she was even able to walk the few steps into the privy chamber. When she emerged, Llewelyn put his arm around her, slowly steered her toward a chair. She leaned so heavily upon him that his fears came rushing back; as weak as she was, how much more could she endure?

  “Llewelyn, I’m afraid…”

  “I know, love, I know.”

  “…afraid you shall be disappointed. You see, I think the babe may be a girl. Dame Meryl said sons are more easily birthed than this.”

  He could not answer her at once, made mute by the utter intensity of his relief. His greatest fear was that she would lose heart, would begin to look upon death as a release; he’d watched too many men die because dying was easier than suffering. But if Joanna had indeed been teetering upon that precipice, she had pulled back in time, had found new reserves of courage to draw upon, to see her child born.

  “I expect we can make do with a daughter if we must,” he said, tenderly teasing, and kissed her swollen eyelids, the corner of her mouth.

  The respite was brief; as Dame Rhagnell had predicted, Joanna’s pains soon resumed. As the contractions increased in frequency and intensity, Dame Meryl stripped off Joanna’s bloodied chemise, began to massage her abdomen. Joanna was groaning, taking deep gulping breaths, but she was not fighting the pain, was going with it, so intent upon her body’s inner directives that she no longer seemed aware of Llewelyn and the midwives. She gasped, digging her nails into Llewelyn’s wrist, and suddenly he could see the child’s head. Joanna’s body convulsed again, and the baby’s shoulders appeared; it slid between her thighs into the eager waiting hands of the midwife.

  It happened so quickly that Llewelyn was taken almost by surprise. He had only a fleeting glimpse of a small dark shape, skin puckered and covered with what looked like slime, bloodied and bruised, and he felt a sick horror that Joanna should have suffered so, only to give birth to a dead child. But then the infant made a mewing sound, and the midwife held it up with a cry of triumph.

  “A man-child,” she exulted. “You’ve a son, my lord, a son!”

  Llewelyn reached out, touched one of the tiny waving fists, and laughed. The midwives did, too, for the birth of a male child called up instinctive and ancient loyalties, and they rejoiced in being able to present a son to the man who was their Prince. Joanna was all but forgotten until she demanded weakly, “Give me my son.”

  Dame Meryl started to do so, instead handed the wet, squirming infant to Llewelyn, and it was he who laid the baby against Joanna’s breast.

  Joanna had never before felt for anyone, not even Elen, what she now felt as she held her son for the first time, a fierce, passionate tenderness, love immediate and overwhelming. “He’s so beautiful,” she whispered, and Llewelyn laughed again, for he thought the baby could not have been uglier, splotched and red and smeared with his own feces, with his mother’s blood. Joanna looked up as he laughed, and smiled at him, a smile he would remember for the rest of his life. But then she jerked spasmodically, groaned.

  One of the midwives grabbed for the baby, at once tied and cut through the navel cord, while the other pressed down upon Joanna’s belly. Blood was spurting down Joanna’s thighs, clotting on the floor. But Branwen was already at Llewelyn’s side, Branwen who knew Tangwystl had bled to death, saying hastily, “It is not what you fear, my lord. The afterbirth does come, that be all.”

  He saw she was right, soon saw a soft, spongy mass expelled into Dame Meryl’s outstretched hands. She caught it deftly, scooped it into a waiting blanket. “It must be kept, must be properly buried,” she explained, “lest it attract demons.” Then she added, with more mischief than malice, “Should you like to look at it, my lord?”

  “Not really,” Llewelyn said, and when he grinned, she grinned back.

  Dame Rhagnell now laid the baby back in Joanna’s arms. “You may hold him for a few moments, Madame, but then he must be cleaned and rubbed with salt, must have his gums rubbed with honey.”

  Llewelyn stood watching his wife and son, not aware of Branwen until she had twice touched his arm. “Here, my lord,” she said, handing him a goblet full of mead. “Is it not a wondrous thing, to see your child born?”

  He nodded. “Indeed. But I’ll tell you what is no less wondrous to me right now. That after a woman endures all this, why she is then willing to let any man ever again get within ten feet of her bed!” Although he spoke partly in jest, he was partly in earnest, too, and the women recognized it, legitimized with lusty, approving laughter his brief incursion into a secret inner realm, the world within a world of women.

  When Joanna awoke, the chamber was deep in shadows. She started to sit up, grimaced, and sank back weakly against the pillow. At once Llewelyn was beside her, leaning over the bed.

  “How do you feel, love?”

  “I ache all over.” To her dismay, she was suddenly shy with him, suddenly fearful that he might feel differently toward her now. “I wanted you so much,” she confessed, “even begged the midwives to send for you when the pains got too bad. They said they could not, that it was not seemly, that a man would be sickened by the birthing…”

  “Joanna, I was fifteen the first time I killed a man. In the years since, I’ve seen men gutted, beheaded, hacked to pieces. I rather think there is more blood on the battlefield than in the birthing chamber,” he said wryly, and when she raised herself up awkwardly on her elbows, he gathered her gently into his arms.

  “The baby…where is he? Has he been fed?”

  “He is fine, breila.” Seeing the doubt in her eyes, he beckoned, and a wet nurse approached the bed, gave Joanna her sleeping son.

  “You’ve arranged for the christening, Llewelyn?” she asked anxiously, not wanting to wait a moment longer than necessary to put her child under God’s protection, and he nodded.

  “This evening in the chapel; I’ll tell you about it after. Catrin has come; she rode in just after you fell asleep. I’ve asked her to stand as godmother, and as godfathers, Adda and Richard. Does that please you?”

  “Very much.” Joanna cradled the baby, touched a finger to his cap of dark, feathery hair. “But ere he can be christened, we must pick a name for him. Have you one in mind?”

  “If you like, we could call him Sion.”

  Joanna drew a sharp breath. “Ah, love, you’d truly do that for me? Let me name him after my father?” She reached for his hand, saw the scratches she’d inflicted, sought feverishly to think, to give him a gift of equal generosity. What name would be most likely to please him? It was not a common custom amongst the Welsh to name a son after the father. Iowerth? Morgan?

  And then she knew, and she smiled at him, said softly, “I do thank you, beloved. But there can be but one name for our son, for a Welsh Prince. We must name him after the most cherished of your saints, we must name him Davydd.”

  Beyond the castle, the world was utter blackness, the sky a vast, starless void. Gruffydd was blinded by the night, kept stumbling, and his face and the palms of his hands were soon scratched from sprawling falls into the tangled underbrush. But he did not slow, did not
halt his headlong flight into the dark.

  He ran until his body could absorb no more abuse, and he staggered, fell to his knees, struggling to fill his lungs with the ice-edged November air. A sharp, pulsing pain was pressing against his ribs, and he dropped down upon the ground, lay panting, his face pressed into the earth. The ground was damp, cold, scattered with dead and decaying leaves. He could feel sweat trickling down his neck, and then tears, seeping through his lashes and searing his skin. He beat his fist against the hard, unyielding earth until his knuckles were raw and bleeding, until he wept.

  25

  Woodstock, England

  October 1209

  “Harri, throw the ball to me. Brysiwch, Harri!”

  Joanna, listening to her children play with Isabelle’s two sons, found herself smiling, amused both by her small daughter’s queenly commands and by the way she switched back and forth from French to Welsh. Henry was, at two, the oldest of the quartet, but he did Elen’s bidding no less promptly than her brother. Davydd was normally Elen’s favorite playmate, but he showed no resentment at being supplanted by Henry, played with his own ball until Richard crawled over, made an awkward grab for it.

  Isabelle sighed, bracing herself for the inevitable squabble, to be followed by tantrums and tears, but Joanna knew better; she felt no surprise when Davydd good-naturedly rolled the ball toward the younger boy. “He has ever been like that,” she said proudly, “ever been willing to share. Unlike Elen, whose first word was ‘mine’!”

  “She is rather an imp, is she not? Not like you at her age, I’ll wager!”

  Joanna laughed ruefully, gave her dark-haired little daughter a look of bemused affection. “Lord, no. She must take after her father, for she surely does not take after me. You’d not believe the trouble she gets into, and still a fortnight from her second birthday. But she is clever, Isabelle, so clever; do you know she talks to me in French and Llewelyn in Welsh?”

  The children’s wet nurses had now entered Isabelle’s chamber, and the game was forgotten; all four were still suckling, and would be until past their second birthdays. Joanna watched as they were ushered toward the far end of the chamber, said, “This has been such a good year, the best I can remember: Llewelyn agreeing to pass Easter with Papa at Northampton; getting to see you and Papa again just six months later; above all, Papa forgiving Llewelyn for going into Powys as he did. As much as I dread to see Llewelyn ride off to war, I was almost pleased when Papa wanted him to join the campaign against the Scots. I felt that might well mend the rift between them. And it did, showed Papa that Llewelyn does mean to hold to his oath of allegiance.”

  “That was a marvelous war, was it not? The best kind, brief and bloodless and oh, so profitable! John was right pleased, says those who call the Scots King ‘William the Lion’ ought better to call him ‘the Lamb’!”

  “What shall be done with William’s daughters, Isabelle? The ones he was forced to yield up to Papa as hostages?”

  “They shall be well treated, kept at court. John never maltreats women; look how he provides for his niece, Eleanor of Brittany, sees that she has whatever she wants.”

  “All save freedom,” Joanna said sadly. “She was about seven years older than I, which would now make her twenty-five or so. By that age, most women have husbands, children…” She did not go on. She did not blame her father, understood he had no choice. But it hurt, nonetheless, to think of her cousin’s gilded confinement at Bristol Castle, and she sought hastily for another topic of conversation. She’d been somewhat taken aback by the luxury of Isabelle’s chamber. She and John were not at Woodstock all that frequently, yet the walls had been wainscoted with fir shipped from Norway, painted a brilliant green and gold, and the windows were glazed, set with costly white glass panes. “Your chamber is a marvel, Isabelle. Papa does right by you, in truth.”

  “Dearest, nothing comes to a woman unless she asks. You ought to coax Llewelyn into having your chambers done over. If you’re clever, he’ll not refuse, will even come in time to think it was his own idea.”

  Joanna laughed. “How little you know of Wales. Llewelyn could never hope to raise the revenues that Papa does; his country is so much smaller, so much poorer. In fact, I wonder that Papa could afford all this either. From the way he talks, he is ever hard pressed for money.”

  “John refuses me nothing these days,” Isabelle said, backed up her boast by opening an iron casket, lifting out a magnificent ruby necklet. “What will it avail him to have peace with the Scots if he has no peace at home?”

  Joanna opened her mouth, shut it abruptly. She’d only been at Woodstock for two days, but it was time enough to become conscious of the whispers, the knowing smiles, the way her father’s eyes followed the young, pretty, blonde wife of one of his household knights. Joanna was sympathetically sure that Isabelle was aware of what was occurring; Isabelle, of all women, would never have missed the subtle yet significant indications of infidelity. Joanna knew a blithe, worldly spirit like Isabelle’s was not likely to be lacerated by a husband’s adultery, but she had not expected her stepmother to react with such nonchalant sangfroid.

  “It…it does not grieve you any?”

  “Ah, Joanna, you are such an innocent. Would it matter if it did? Would John then repent, forsake all other women? What cannot be changed must be accepted, no?” Isabelle held the ruby necklet up to the light, looped it over her fingers. “If we are supposed to profit from our own mistakes, why should we not, as well, profit from the mistakes of others, from the indiscretions of erring husbands?” She reached over, draped the necklet around Joanna’s throat. “You may wear it at dinner if you like. Surely I have not shocked you, darling? You do not truly think your Llewelyn is faithful, do you?”

  “Yes,” Joanna said, and then, seeing Isabelle’s smile of pitying disbelief, she added hastily, “Oh, I am not so naïve as to believe he has never strayed. I do not doubt he finds women to warm his bed when we are apart, as when he was away in Scotland and England for two full months this summer. Whatever the Welsh laws may hold on fidelity, Llewelyn is no man to live like a monk. But I know how little such encounters mean to him, and I know that he does not lay with another woman when he can lay with me.”

  “No mistresses, no concubines? Not even that woman who bore his twins?”

  “No,” Joanna insisted, so resolutely that Isabelle said indulgently, if still skeptically:

  “It’s glad I am for you, then.” She removed the circlet anchoring her veil and wimple, handed Joanna a brush, confiding, “I had a scare this spring, thought I might be with child again. I do not mind having more, think I’d like a daughter. But I’ve borne John two sons in fifteen months, have no desire to drop a litter a year! So…to give myself some breathing space, I’ve been taking brake-root in wine.”

  “But Isabelle, that is a sin. You know what the Church does say, that nothing must be done to prevent a child’s conception.”

  Isabelle shrugged. “I know, too, who gets to bear that child—not His Holiness the Pope. But you cannot be all that eager yourself to face the birthing chamber again, Joanna. At the least, you should put a jasper stone under your pillow when you lay with Llewelyn. Ask him to get you one; you need not tell him what it is for.”

  “Of course I would tell him! Think you I’d do that without his consent?”

  “And what if he balks? If he is one of those men who judges his manhood by his wife’s protruding belly?”

  “Not Llewelyn,” Joanna said and smiled. “The midwives think it unlikely that I’ll be able to carry a child again to full term, think I might not even conceive again. When I told Llewelyn that, he said, ‘Thank the Lord God!’ He has ever—” Breaking off in mid-sentence, she jumped to her feet, ran to console her son. Davydd had begun an unsteady trek across the chamber toward his mother, only to lose a precarious balance and fall upon his face. Picking him up, Joanna soothed and teased until his sobs ceased, until he settled contentedly in her lap, began to suck upon a sticky l
ittle thumb.

  “Joanna, I confess I still do not understand Welsh laws of succession. John says illegitimacy is no bar, that Gruffydd has the same rights as your son. Is that true? Does that make him Llewelyn’s heir, as the firstborn?”

  “Under Welsh law, all sons share equally in the father’s estates. It is a fair system for the common people, fairer for younger sons than Norman primogeniture, which gives all to the eldest son. But it has one dreadful drawback, Isabelle; how do you divide a kingdom? What inevitably happens when a prince dies is that his sons fight amongst themselves, winner-take-all to the survivor.”

  “You’re saying that when Llewelyn dies, Gwynedd would be partitioned between his two bastard-born Welsh sons and your Davydd?”

  Joanna nodded grimly. “And the very thought does terrify me. It is not just a question of preserving Davydd’s rightful inheritance. Should evil befall Llewelyn ere Davydd reaches manhood, it would become a question of Davydd’s very life.”

  “Is there nothing you can do, Joanna?”

  “There must be.” Joanna brushed her lips to her son’s pitch-black hair. “Blessed Mary, but there must be.”

  “I think not, have no desire for an English knife at my throat.”

  “Do not be insulting; I am Norman, not English. And you let me cut your hair, do you not? So why should I not shave you? Unless you truly want to trust your throat to a barber so greensick from wine that he seems stricken with palsy? Now lie down. I’ll be right careful, have no wish to get blood all over the bed!”

  “Why am I so sure I am going to regret this?” But Llewelyn did as Joanna bade, lay back and rested his head in her lap.

  “There now,” Joanna said with satisfaction some minutes later. “Almost done and I’ve yet to draw blood.” She cocked her head to the side in playful appraisal. “Have you never wondered how you’d look without your mustache?”