Here Be Dragons

by Sharon Kay Penman

  Davydd was the last to depart. Joanna stood for a moment with him upon the porch, not speaking, just sharing. Then she turned, went back into the chamber where Davydd had been born, where Llewelyn awaited her.

  They both moved toward each other at once, came together in the middle of the room. “Beloved, what can I say? I know that my joy is your pain—know, too, how very difficult a decision it was. In truth, Llewelyn, you are a remarkable man.”

  Llewelyn tightened his arms around her. “No,” he said, his voice muffled in her hair. “No, I am a man who is going to lose his son.”

  Llewelyn had dreaded nothing—not even his surrender to John at Aberconwy—as much as he dreaded telling his son. And it proved to be even more of an ordeal than he expected. Gruffydd listened in unnerving silence, never taking his eyes from Llewelyn’s face, eyes filled with such stunned disbelief that Llewelyn found his throat tightening, his own eyes stinging.

  “The cantref of Meirionydd has been mine since my cousin Hywel’s death. I am giving it now to you, Gruffydd. Also the lordship of Ardudwy. And in time, mayhap even—”

  “Why?”

  “As I told you, lad, Gwynedd has to be kept intact. It is the only way we can hope to resist English incursions, to—”

  “Why Davydd? Why Davydd and not me?”

  “Davydd is the nephew of the English King. That will afford him some degree of influence at the English court, for Henry gives great weight to blood ties. And they are of an age, have taken a liking to one another. That, too, might one day work to our advantage.”

  “I know you love her. But you loved my mother, too. I am your firstborn. And lest you forget, I was four years as an English prisoner—for you, Papa, for you!” Some of Gruffydd’s control cracked. “Does that now count for nothing?”

  Llewelyn flinched, but he did not relent. “I know you suffered on my account. But I cannot allow that to unbalance the scales, not when so much is at stake.”

  “Do not do this to me, Papa. All my life I’ve sought to please you, to make you proud of me. And I…I thought you were!”

  “I am proud of you. There is no man in Christendom I’d rather have by my side in a battle.” Llewelyn drew a constricted breath. “But I cannot let you rule in my stead. I cannot let you destroy yourself in a war you could never win.” His voice changed, steadied. “And I cannot let you destroy Gwynedd. I will not prove my love by the loss of Welsh independence.”

  “What independence? You’ve turned Wales into an English fief, and yourself into an English lackey!”

  “I know what I’ve taken from you, do not begrudge you your anger. But your bitterness will change nothing, Gruffydd, and that is what you must try to understand, to accept.”

  “Must I indeed? I think not, my lord Prince, I think not! You’re not just denying me my birthright. I have a son of my own now, or have you forgotten? What of Owain, what of his right?”

  Gruffydd was blinded by tears, but they were tears now of rage. He turned away, and Llewelyn caught his arm.

  “Gruffydd, wait!”

  Gruffydd wrenched free. “Tell your woman and her half-breed son to savor their victory whilst they can!”

  Llewelyn made no further attempt to hold him. “When your anger cools, I hope you will remember what I am about to say now—that you will always have a place at my court, in my life, in my heart.”

  Gruffydd was already at the door. “Rot in Hell,” he said, and sobbed. “Rot in Hell!”

  As Joanna and Llewelyn left the abbey, crossed the stone bridge into Shrewsbury, Joanna felt uncomfortably conspicuous. It seemed strange to her that they should be riding so peacefully along a route Llewelyn had once followed in war. Llewelyn, however, did not share her self-consciousness. He was indifferent to the stares of the townspeople, had been amused that they should be staying in the very abbey guest-house once fired by Welsh arrows. As they turned onto the street called Altus Vicus, he nonchalantly pointed toward the High Cross, telling her that was where he’d accepted the surrender of Shrewsbury.

  “Of course, that wall was not there then,” he said, gesturing toward the structure in progress; stones were being mortared in horizontal layers under the supervision of masons, while men hoisted buckets of rubble up onto the scaffolding to fill in the space between the inner and outer faces of the wall. “The citizens of Shrewsbury can thank me for their new wall. In the past, the crown was never willing to put up the money needed to wall the city in.”

  “So you’re saying you did the townspeople a favor by attacking them?” Joanna was delighted by Llewelyn’s laughter, for she’d heard it so seldom in the past month, not since Gruffydd had left the court. “I was so proud of Davydd yesterday,” she confided, seeing again in her mind’s eye the ceremony in which Henry formally took his nephew under the protection of the English crown, acknowledged Davydd as Llewelyn’s heir. “Henry seemed to enjoy it, too. He has quite a liking for pageantry, cannot wait till his coronation on the seventeenth. I think he felt cheated before, not being crowned at Westminster like our other kings.”

  “Their other kings, if you please, Madame,” Llewelyn objected, but he was smiling. “Should you like to attend the coronation, Joanna?”

  “I would indeed!” Joanna guided her mare closer to Llewelyn. “May I take Davydd and Elen?” And when he nodded, she experienced a surge of heartfelt happiness. “I’m very fond of Henry. There’s a sweetness about him, a vulnerability that can be quite touching. I see in him Isabelle’s extravagance and generosity, her love of surprises and compliments and secrets. But I can find in him nothing of my father. Tell me, Llewelyn, what sort of King do you think he’ll make?”

  “I agree with you that he’s a likable lad. But he has two traits that do not augur well for kingship. He is rather timid, and yet inflexible, too, loath to compromise. In truth, I do not think he’ll make a good King for the English. He may well, however, prove to be a very good King indeed for Wales.”

  Joanna joined in his laughter. “I suspect,” she said, “that you intrigue even in your sleep. I know you truly do like Henry, but you’re deliberately cultivating his goodwill, too. Sometimes you look at him as if he were a fallow field, just waiting for your plow!”

  Llewelyn grinned, did not deny it. They had just crossed through the arched gateway into the inner bailey of the castle, and Llewelyn himself helped Joanna to dismount. “I do not tell you nearly as often as I ought,” he murmured, “but you hold my heart.” She gave him so loving a look that he almost kissed her right then and there. “Come on,” he said, taking her arm, “lest these English think I’m besotted with my own wife!”

  Davydd was waiting for them upon the steps of the great hall. He had spent the night with Henry at the castle, and Llewelyn’s smile faded at sight of him, for he could not help thinking of his other son, the son who would have socialized with the English King only at swordpoint.

  Davydd looked troubled. “Something is wrong,” he said.

  As they entered the great hall, Llewelyn paused to greet Pandulf, who’d recently replaced Guala as the papal legate, and Stephen Langton, restored to favor by the new Pope; as Archbishop of Canterbury, it was he who would crown Henry eleven days hence. Llewelyn addressed both prelates with marked respect, as genuine men of God. He did not hold the urbane, luxury-loving Bishop of Winchester in the same esteem, but Peter des Roches was deserving of notice, too, if for altogether different reasons. With Pembroke dead and Chester still on crusade, Peter des Roches was undeniably the most powerful man in England, the one with the most influence upon the young King.

  Peter was flanked by Hubert de Burgh, the Justiciar, and William Marshal, who’d succeeded his father as Earl of Pembroke. His greeting to Llewelyn was noticeably cool; the Pembroke holdings in South Wales were extensive and it was inevitable that the young Earl, who was not the statesman his late father had been, should feel threatened by Llewelyn’s growing power. Llewelyn was equally cool to him in return, before saying to Peter, “My son tells me a d
isturbing letter has come from the Queen.”

  Pembroke was affronted that Llewelyn should feel so free to meddle in affairs of the crown. But he was not in high favor at Henry’s court, for he’d been one of those lords who’d abandoned John for Louis, while Llewelyn was brother-in-law to the King. He was aggrieved but not surprised, therefore, when Peter des Roches responded as if Llewelyn had a right to know.

  “It’s my fault, in part. I should have read the letter ere I passed it on to Henry. The Queen’s never been one for writing letters, but I just assumed it concerned Hugh de Lusignan’s death. You did hear he died on crusade?”

  Llewelyn nodded. The latest endeavor to free the Holy Land had taken a heavy toll of Christian lives, among them Saer de Quincy and his eldest son and Joanna’s half-brother Oliver, although those who lost loved ones on crusade at least had the consolation of knowing the slain were admitted at once into Paradise.

  “Prepare yourself for a startling piece of news,” Peter said. “It seems Queen Isabelle has married Hugh de Lusignan’s son, her daughter’s betrothed!”

  Joanna had joined them just in time to hear Peter’s improbable announcement. “She what?”

  She sounded so amazed that Peter smiled; unlike Pembroke and de Burgh, who appeared genuinely shocked by Isabelle’s wayward behavior, he seemed more grimly amused than anything else. “Here, my lady,” he said, infuriating Pembroke by handing the Queen’s letter to Joanna. “Read it for yourself.”

  Llewelyn followed Joanna to the window, where the light was better. Although his outdoor sight was still eagle-keen, as he moved into his late forties he was becoming increasingly farsighted. Knowing that, and knowing, too, that he was somewhat sensitive about it, Joanna elected to read Isabelle’s letter aloud.

  “She says that after the deaths of Hugh de Lusignan and his brother, the young Hugh remained alone and without heirs in Poitou, and he felt he could not marry her daughter because of her tender age. His friends counseled him to take a French wife by whom he could beget an heir. She writes: ‘If he had done this, all your and our lands in Poitou and Gascony would have been lost. When we, however, saw the great peril which might arise should that marriage take place, we married the said Hugh, Count of La Marche, and let Heaven witness that we did this rather for your benefit than for our own. Wherefore we ask you, as our dear son, to be pleased with this, as it greatly profits you and yours.’”

  Joanna raised her eyes from the letter, saw her husband struggling not to laugh, and she smiled ruefully. “She is not very convincing, is she? Isabelle, the martyred mother, bravely sacrificing herself for her son’s sake. The rest of the letter asks Henry to give them her dower castles of Niort, Exeter, and Rockingham, and three thousand five hundred marks she says my father bequeathed to her.”

  “Does she mention her daughter at all?”

  Joanna scanned the letter again. “At the end. She says she and Hugh will send Joanna back to England if Henry desires it. Llewelyn…I just remembered something very intriguing. When I last saw Isabelle, she spoke very kindly of this same Hugh de Lusignan, sounded as if he’d already made quite an impression upon her.”

  “Mayhap he had,” Llewelyn said dryly, “but she’s been back in Angoulême for two years now, and you notice she did not marry him until his father died, until he became the new Count of La Marche. Our Isabelle might look like gossamer and gold dust, but when it comes to practicality, she’d put a French peasant to shame.”

  “Nonetheless, I mean to cling to my romantic illusions,” Joanna said and laughed. “What’s more, I wish Isabelle well, hope she finds contentment in her new marriage.”

  “I wonder what the Pope will make of it. Isabelle was plight-trothed to Hugh’s father, and Hugh to Isabelle’s daughter. The truth, breila—does that not sound somewhat incestuous?”

  But Joanna was no longer listening to his banter, for Henry had just entered the hall.

  Henry turned as Joanna joined him in the window recess. He was an attractive youngster, with his mother’s striking blue eyes; they were reddened now, suspiciously swollen. “You heard?” he mumbled, and Joanna took a sister’s liberty, kissed him sympathetically upon the cheek.

  “I know it was a shock, dearest. But it was only to be expected that your mother would one day wed again. She’s been a widow for more than three years, and although thirty-two doubtless seems ancient from your vantage point, she ought to have many years ahead of her. You’d not want those years to be lonely or empty, Henry, I know you would not.”

  “You do not understand.” Henry had checked his tears, but his voice still quavered. “Do you not see what this marriage means, Joanna? Now Mama will never come home.”

  In the early years of the twelfth century, the English King had encouraged the settlement of large numbers of Flemings in South Wales. The settlements thrived, and in time Dyfed lost much of its Welsh character; Welsh was no longer spoken there, and the area came to be known as “Little England beyond Wales.” There was much bitterness between the displaced native-born Welsh and the Flemings, and the Welsh had been complaining to Llewelyn that the Flemings were burning their churches and running off their cattle. Llewelyn was quite willing to intervene on behalf of his countrymen, to punish the Flemish intruders, for that was how he viewed them. That the Flemings were tenants of the new Earl of Pembroke had not escaped his attention, either.

  On August 16, Llewelyn was waiting in the city of Chester to welcome the Earl of Chester home from the crusade. Just a few days later, Llewelyn led an army south into Dyfed. Accompanied by most of the Welsh Princes, he destroyed the castles of Narbeth and Wiston, burned the town of Haverford, and did extensive damage to the Earl of Pembroke’s lands in Rhos.

  Pembroke vowed vengeance, but for the time being he was unable to act upon his anger, and the Welsh Prince’s year closed in triumph.

  But Gruffydd and his wife and infant son had withdrawn from Llewelyn’s court, and Gruffydd still spurned all of Llewelyn’s attempts at reconciliation.

  4

  Aber, North Wales

  July 1221

  Rhys, Adda, and Morgan were seated at the high table in the great hall of Llewelyn’s palace at Aber. Llewelyn had not yet returned from Shrewsbury, where, meeting with the young English King and the papal legate Pandulf, he’d agreed to a truce with the Earl of Pembroke and Reginald de Braose. It was a truce none expected to last; the interests of the Welsh Prince and the Marcher border lords were too antithetical to reconcile for long.

  In Llewelyn’s absence, Adda was accorded the place of honor, but he’d barely touched the food ladled onto his trencher. Neither Rhys nor Morgan had much appetite, either.

  “Are you sure we ought to wait till Llewelyn returns from Shrewsbury?”

  Adda nodded. “We can be that merciful at least, can give him a few more days ere he has to know about Gruffydd.”

  Rhys could not quarrel with that. Picking up a piece of bread, he occupied himself in cleaning his knife for the next course. “I still do not understand why Llewelyn took his wife with him. A council chamber is no fit place for a woman.”

  “Llewelyn thinks otherwise,” Morgan said composedly. “He told me he felt certain he would benefit from her presence at Shrewsbury, even said—only half in jest—that he considers Joanna his ambassador to the English court.”

  Rhys looked rather skeptical, but then he startled them by saying, “I would that I’d gone to Shrewsbury, too, with Llewelyn and Ednyved.”

  It had been more than six years since Llewelyn had chosen Ednyved to replace the ailing Gwyn ab Ednewain as his Seneschal, and Ednyved had made the most of the opportunity; he’d become Llewelyn’s mainstay, wielding far more political power than his predecessor. But Rhys had never before given the slightest sign of jealousy, given any indication that he nurtured political ambitions of his own or begrudged Ednyved his ascending star, and Morgan and Adda were not sure now whether his remark was an oblique admission of envy for his cousin’s privileged position.
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br />   Rhys was unmindful of their speculative looks. He swallowed a mouthful of gingered carp before concluding morosely, “If I had, I’d not yet know about Gruffydd, would not be sitting here wondering how to tell Llewelyn that his son is in rebellion against him.”

  “You’re sure it was Gruffydd? There can be no mistake?”

  Llewelyn’s voice was quite even, but Morgan was not deceived; he found it very hard to continue, to take away Llewelyn’s last shred of hope. “A fortnight ago Gruffydd led an army from Ardudwy into Eifionydd. Our people took refuge in Cricieth Castle, and he swung south into Lleyn, burned your manor at Pwllheli. Before retreating into Meirionydd, he crossed into Arfon, harassed the monks at Beddgelert when they balked at emptying their larders for his men.”

  Adda rarely laid his emotions open for others to see. But he’d loved Gruffydd too much to be dispassionate now. “There is no mistake, Llewelyn. Gruffydd is known on sight throughout most of Gwynedd. Nor did he seek to conceal his identity. To the contrary, he flaunted his banners for all to see. He wanted you to know, Llewelyn, went to some pains to make sure you would.”

  Llewelyn turned toward Ednyved. “I want a courier to depart at dawn for Meirionydd. He is to tell Gruffydd that I command him to appear before my court to answer for his actions.”

  Ednyved nodded, then gave Llewelyn the only comfort he had to offer—privacy. Adda and Morgan followed him from the chamber, leaving Joanna in a quandary. Her every instinct counseled her to remain, but she was at an utter loss for words. Gruffydd—no less than John—had always been an exceedingly dangerous subject, to be broached only with the utmost caution.