Here Be Dragons

by Sharon Kay Penman

“I’ll do as you wish, Papa.” But it was a stranger’s voice, did not sound like Elen at all, and suddenly Joanna found herself wishing passionately that her daughter could be a child again, with a child’s choices and the easy comfort to be found within a mother’s embrace. She moved forward, put her arm around Elen’s shoulders. The girl stiffened at the touch; pulling away, she fled the chamber. She stumbled several times, bumped into the table as she turned, and that, too, was unlike Elen.

  They let her go. Llewelyn sat down abruptly in the nearest chair. He was the first to break the silence. “Was I wrong, Joanna?”

  She shook her head. “No, love, you were not. I do believe what I told Elen, that we could not make a better match for her than this.”

  Crossing to his chair, Joanna put her arms around his neck, rested her cheek against his hair; although she teased him at times about going grey, it was still thick and dark, showed silver only under fullest sunlight. But he looked his age at the moment, looked so careworn that she leaned over, kissed the corner of his mouth. “I’ll talk to Elen,” she promised. “I’ll go and look for her right now.”

  “I wish you would, breila. There’s no logical reason for Elen to oppose this marriage, and once she’s wed, finds herself the Countess of Huntingdon, she’ll see it was for the best. I know that, Joanna. And yet…yet I still feel as if I’d been hunting for roebuck and instead shot someone’s tame fawn.”

  Llanfaes was one of Joanna’s favorite manors. She liked the relatively mild island climate, loved to walk along the shore, to gaze across the narrow strait toward the lofty range called Eryri by the Welsh and Snowdon by the English. She knew that Elen, too, loved the dramatic contrast of sea, sky, and mountains, and she headed for the beach. As she expected, there she found her daughter, standing alone by the water’s edge.

  Elen was clutching her veil; it was crumpled, wet with tears. But her eyes were dry as she turned to face Joanna; they held no tears, only anger. “Go away, Mama,” she said. “I do not want to talk to you.”

  “Darling, I know you’re hurting. But it will pass, I swear it will. Elen, I know.”

  “You’ve felt like this, Mama? You’ve felt trapped? Trapped and helpless?”

  “Yes, Elen, yes. God’s truth, I did. You must believe me, darling.”

  “I do, Mama. I believe you. And that is why I cannot forgive you.” Elen’s voice was coldly accusing. But all the while she was twisting and knotting the veil with hands that shook.

  “I know Papa loves me. But he is a man and cannot possibly understand how it feels to be bartered to the highest bidder like a prized filly. You, though, Mama, you should have understood. You should have spoken up for me. But you did not, did you? And now you tell me you know how I feel. Well, that just makes your failure all the more unforgivable!”

  “Elen, I could not argue against this marriage. I believe it is right for you. John can offer you a good life, can offer you all I’ve ever wanted for you, and more. And he—”

  “But what of me? What of what I want?”

  “You’re fourteen, Elen. You’re not in a position to make a decision that will affect your entire life. Nor was I, at your age. A young girl cannot choose her own husband. Darling, you know that. This is how marriages are made. This is how it’s always been done.”

  “Just because something has always been done a certain way does not make it right. But you cannot see that, can you, Mama? You’ll not talk to Papa. You’ll not try to change his mind.”

  “No, Elen,” Joanna said softly. “I cannot do that.”

  Elen dropped her veil, watched as the wind carried it away, an incongruous splash of color against the drifting sand. “Then we have nothing more to say, have we? I’ll marry your John the Scot, Mama. And you may be right; I may in time be reconciled to it, to him. But what if I’m not? Have you thought of that? What if you’re wrong?”

  Llewelyn and Chester selected Tuesday, November 22, as the date for the wedding, three weeks past Elen’s fifteenth birthday, five days before the beginning of Advent, when the marriage Mass would be prohibited. Elen and John the Scot were wed in the city of Chester, in the same abbey church in which Llewelyn and Joanna had been wed sixteen years earlier. The wedding was a social event of impressive proportions, attracting the highborn of Wales and England alike. Rhys Ieunac had died that past August, but his brother Owain was present, as were his uncles Maelgwn and Rhys Gryg. So, too, was Llewelyn’s cousin Madog, lord of Upper Powys. Henry could not attend, but he’d sent his younger brother, Dickon, and his seven-year-old sister, Nell, in his stead. And as Joanna glanced now around the great hall of the Earl’s castle, she saw most of the Norman nobility.

  “I was astonished when Hubert de Burgh accepted his invitation,” she confided to Richard. “He and Chester have been at odds for months now, and I would not think he’d want to socialize with a man who likes him so little.”

  “The English court thrives on such feuds,” Richard said dryly. “The very fact that de Burgh mistrusts Chester would guarantee his presence here; he’d want to make sure Chester and Llewelyn were not conspiring against him. I daresay that if he were not in Ireland, even Pembroke would have attended the wedding.”

  “I’m right glad he did not. The last thing I want is a brawl, thank you. Speaking of which, I was not heartbroken when Gruffydd refused to come. But he and Senena are the only ones absent. That’s Tegwared, Llewelyn’s other son, standing over there with my Davydd. You’ve never met Tegwared, have you? I do not know him well myself, for he was with Cristyn till he was seven, and was then reared in Ednyved’s household as a foster son, in accordance with custom. The lass with him is his betrothed, one of Ednyved’s daughters.” Joanna’s smile was fleeting. “At least that is one marriage we need not worry about.”

  Richard followed the path of her gaze, across the hall to where Elen and her new husband were standing, surrounded by well-wishers. “Is it strange for you, Joanna, being back at the scene of your own wedding?”

  “Somewhat strange, yes. Sixteen years does not seem so very long, but a surprising number of our wedding guests are now dead. Hugh Corbet. His brother Robert, just last month. Stephen de Hodnet—you did not know him, a friend of Llewelyn’s.”

  Fearing that she was going to name Maude de Braose next, Richard sought to distract her, saying hastily, “And of course Isabelle is not here. I miss her, Joanna, more than I’d have expected. Does she write to you?”

  “Isabelle? Not likely! But I did have news of her just a fortnight ago. Although it’s less than a year since she gave Hugh a son, Henry says she is with child again.”

  Joanna paused, looking about the hall. The feasting was now done, and the trestle tables were being dismantled to allow for dancing. “I’m rather glad Thomas Corbet is not here; I remember him stirring up trouble at my wedding. So, too, did Fulk Fitz Warin; he kept going on about the bedding revels at the top of his voice! But he was not invited, either; he’s siding with Pembroke these days. So, too, is Baldwin de Hodnet, even though Llewelyn once gave both men refuge at his court. They are just about the only Marcher lords not present, though. All the Fitz Alans are here, and more de Braoses than I can count.”

  It surprised Richard that she sounded so nonchalant, almost flippant. “Are you more comfortable now, Joanna? Being with the de Braoses?”

  “The truth, Richard? No, I am not. But that is a problem I’m learning to live with. What other choice do I have, with three of my husband’s daughters wed into the de Braose clan?”

  “Three? Gwladys and Reginald de Braose, of course. And then—what is her name—Marared and Reginald’s nephew Jack. Who else?”

  “Last year Gwenllian was wed to William de Lacy, half-brother to Hugh de Lacy, Earl of Ulster, and Walter de Lacy, Lord of Meath. Walter is husband to Margaret de Braose, Maude’s daughter.”

  “Ah, Joanna, what a tangled coil.” But after a moment Richard started to see the perverse humor in Joanna’s predicament. His mouth twitched, and he coughed, trying t
o camouflage a laugh.

  Joanna gave him a look that was quizzical, half resentful. But there was something contagious about his amusement, and she was soon laughing, too. “I know—it’s ludicrous,” she admitted. “I’m bloody well surrounded by de Braoses; any day now I expect to find one under my bed!”

  Their laughter had been a spontaneous, almost involuntary reaction to the absurd, and it ended as abruptly as it began. Much sobered, Joanna said quietly, “It is not so bad with Reginald, for I do not see much of him anymore; he and Llewelyn have not been on good terms for several years now. But Jack de Braose is often at our court. We’re polite to each other, Richard, too polite. But I cannot look into his face without remembering that his father and grandmother died in a Windsor dungeon, that he spent eight years in confinement at Corfe Castle. And if it is so uncomfortable for me, how must it be for him?”

  Richard knew it was not the place, but the opportunity might not arise again. “Joanna, I hope you’ll not take amiss what I’m about to say. Your problem is not with the de Braoses. It’s with Papa. Until you face the truth about him, about the manner of man he was and how you feel about that, you’re going to continue doing this to yourself, and I hate to see it. Jesú, we earn enough guilt and remorse of our own in this life without taking on the sins of others.”

  “I have faced the truth! Do I deny the cruelties Papa committed, do I defend him? What more do you want of me?”

  Joanna’s voice had risen; several people were looking in their direction. Richard leaned over and, in a rare gesture of public affection, kissed his sister on the cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said, and was. He had no answers for Joanna. What had worked for him—distancing himself from John—obviously did not work for her. “I just want you to be happy, that’s all.”

  “I am happy, Richard, in truth I am,” Joanna said, and then she smiled. “I think you are, too; I’ve rarely seen you look so relaxed. It must suit you, being Lord of Chilham, sheriff of Berkshire and Staffordshire.”

  “It does indeed. Whatever else may be said of Papa, he did right by us in our marriages.”

  “Yes,” Joanna said, “he did. I only hope Llewelyn and I did as well for Elen.”

  She was still thinking of that a few moments later, as she made her way across the hall toward Gwladys. How could a parent ever know which marriage would flourish and which would fail? Marared seemed utterly content with Jack de Braose, had given him a son upon whom they both doted. But Gwladys and her husband treated each other with the cool politeness of strangers, and after seven years, their marriage was still barren.

  “I’m so glad you were able to come, Gwladys,” Joanna said warmly, for she’d not been at all sure that Reginald would agree to attend the wedding; he was rarely seen these days in the same company as his nephew. The feud between Reginald and Jack had been dragging on for several years now, ever since Jack had regained his freedom and laid claim to the bulk of the de Braose lands, as the heir of Will and Maude’s eldest son. Nor had Llewelyn eased the tension any by siding with Jack, allowing him to wed Marared.

  Joanna had found it difficult to forgive Llewelyn for that, for putting additional strain upon his daughter’s troubled marriage. But Gwladys kept her own counsel, and if she had regrets, none but she knew. She and Reginald seemed to find no lack of reasons for increasingly long absences apart, and now she said, quite composedly, “I’d have come with or without Reginald. Surely you do not think I’d ever miss Elen’s wedding?”

  Both women turned, gazed across the hall. Elen was clad in a gown of Alexandrine velvet, a brilliant blue-green shade that set off to perfection her free-flowing black hair, gleaming like polished ebony against a gossamer gold veil.

  “She makes a lovely bride,” Gwladys said, and Joanna nodded slowly.

  “Yes…but not a happy one.”

  “I do not think you need fret about Elen, Joanna. She’s so volatile that she needs a steadying hand. I expect John will be good for her.”

  Gwladys accepted a wine cup from a passing servant, clinked it against Joanna’s. “To Elen,” she said. “And speaking of volatile spirits, my husband’s wayward son has decided to put in an appearance after all.”

  “Will? He’s here?”

  “Indeed he is. And how like Will; he misses the wedding entirely, but arrives in time for the celebration. I am sorry about this, Joanna, hope you do not mind too much.”

  “No, I…I do not mind. You just caught me by surprise, for he did turn down the invitation. Did he bring his wife?”

  “No, thank God!” Gwladys said, and laughed at Joanna’s startled look. “You do not know her, do you? Take it from me, the Lady Eva Marshal is a bitch, every bit as haughty and obdurate as her brother Pembroke.”

  Joanna was only half listening; she had no interest whatsoever in Will’s wife. She’d not expected this, that she’d feel so flustered at the thought of seeing Will de Braose again. She did not truly know him; theirs had been a brief afternoon encounter more than twelve years past. But she’d thought of him often since learning of Maude’s fate, and she knew suddenly that of all the de Braoses, it was Will she’d always most dreaded to face.

  “You do not like Will, do you, Gwladys? Would you tell me why?”

  “Well, he did oppose my marriage to his father, so from the beginning there was tension betwixt us. But it’s more than that, Joanna. I think he’s a dangerous man, the sort that breaks hearts and heads with equal ease. Down in Deheubarth, the Welsh call him Gwilym Ddu.”

  “Black Will?” Joanna echoed in surprise. “That’s passing strange, for I remember his hair as being very light, a flaxen color.”

  “It still is,” Gwladys said, very dryly.

  “I see. He’s not very well thought of, then?”

  “That depends upon whom you ask. Men do not like him much, women generally like him too much. There’s been more than one scandal involving an angry husband, an errant wife. Will’s not trustworthy, Joanna. Local legend has it that he once sold the same piece of land to three different buyers, and whilst I cannot vouch for the truth of that, I’d not put it past him. He cuts with a sharp blade, does our Will, leaves himself no margin for error.”

  The dancing had begun; a circle was forming for the carole, and Elen and John the Scot were soon coaxed into the center. They danced well together, won themselves a round of applause when the figure was completed. Elen then shook her head and John led her back toward the sidelines. He had a naturally ruddy complexion, even more flushed now from the dance, and the same unruly, sandy hair as his cousin the Scots King, but he did have an engaging grin, which he flashed as he caught Joanna’s eye.

  Elen, however, had no smiles at all to offer. Although she was standing beside John, her hand in his, she seemed set upon acting as if their proximity were mere coincidence. She was watching the other dancers, looking so aloof that Joanna wanted to take her aside, to shake some sense into her. Remembering how she’d labored to hide her own reluctance from Llewelyn, it seemed to her that Elen was behaving very badly, and she started toward them, intent upon having a brief word in private with her daughter. For better or worse, Elen was now John’s wife, and she must be made to see how important it was that she make an effort to please him.

  So engrossed was Joanna in her concern that she did not notice the man until he moved into her path, so suddenly they almost collided. She stepped back, looking up at a stranger, a very attractive stranger, with bright blond hair and beard, clear grey eyes, an unsmiling, sharply sculptured mouth. The fourteen-year-old boy Joanna had remembered was utterly gone. But she still recognized him and smiled, said, not altogether truthfully, “I am glad to see you again, Will.”

  “Are you, Madame? Are you indeed?” he drawled, and while the words themselves were innocuous, he invested them with so much hostility that the blood surged up into her face.

  Her reaction was instinctive, purely defensive. “Of course I am, Will,” she heard herself say archly. “We’ll talk later, I hope?” She manage
d another smile, polite but dismissive, and moved away before he could respond.

  Joanna was more shaken by the encounter than she should have been; dimly she realized that. She did not doubt that Will was voicing what all the de Braoses thought; he just happened to be the only one who did not need her husband’s favor, who could afford to be honest. So why, then, did it hurt so?

  She sought without success to catch Elen alone, had no more luck in tracking down Llewelyn. She danced several times, but could find no pleasure in it, for by then she was aware again of Will. He made no approach, but he never took his eyes from her—a cool, challenging stare that she could neither ignore nor acknowledge. She endured it as long as she could, and then her anger broke through. Draining her wine cup, she turned, walked directly toward Will.

  “I think,” she said, “that it is time we talked.”

  She’d rarely seen eyes so compelling, or so cold. “What do we have to say?”

  “If you do not want to talk to me, why are you staring at me? Why are you following me about the hall?”

  “Was I?”

  “You know damned well you were!” She heard her own voice, sharp-edged and shrill, and took several quick breaths. “I do not want to quarrel with you. Surely we can talk without anger. You once told me that you did not believe in blood guilt for women, remember?”

  Something flickered in those grey eyes, too elusive for analysis. “Yes,” he said, “I do remember. But your father taught me otherwise.”

  Joanna waited until she was sure she could trust her voice. “It seems I was mistaken. I have nothing to say to you after all.”

  The porch of the great hall connected directly to the chapel in Caesar’s Tower; the chamber above it had been set aside for Joanna’s little sister. But Nell had shown herself to be as strong-willed as the grandmother after whom she’d been named, resisting bedtime until she was half asleep on her feet. Only then had she yielded, allowing Joanna and her nurse to put her to bed.