Here Be Dragons

by Sharon Kay Penman

  “Madame, I have wondrous news for you! A letter arrived this forenoon from your lord husband. He says the war is going very well for us. The English are running low on food, are sore beset by our men, and they’re losing their will to fight, are squabbling amongst themselves. Lord Llewelyn has cut off their supply lines, even captured a great Norman lord when he ambushed a foraging party, one who’ll bring a goodly ransom. He writes that he expects the war will soon be over, that Hubert de Burgh will have to abandon the castle he hoped to build at Pen y Castell and withdraw from Wales.”

  “I am not going to ask how you know the contents of my husband’s letter…not yet. Right now I just want you to fetch it for me, and be quick!”

  “Madame, I would not pry into your letter! I cannot read! Lord Adda shared it with us in the great hall.”

  Joanna could not hide her dismay. “The letter was to Adda? Not to me?”

  “No, Madame, not to you.” Not spiteful, just oblivious, Madlen added blithely, “Oh, but Lord Llewelyn did include a message for you in the letter. He sent that captive Norman lord to us for safekeeping, but he says the lord is to be treated as a hostage of high rank, not as a common prisoner, and he is to be given the freedom of the court, as he pledged his knight’s honor he’d not try to escape. Yet our lord would as soon rely upon a more tangible barrier than an enemy’s honor, and he thinks it best to put a swift current betwixt the lord and temptation. That was his message, that you should at once move the court to the isle of Môn.”

  Joanna spun about, moved to the window so she’d not betray herself with burning color. Almost immediately, though, she recoiled, having caught sight of Senena crossing the courtyard. “What is she doing here, Madlen?”

  “The Lady Senena? She came back yesterday, is making arrangements to send some of Lord Gruffydd’s household goods to Deganwy: his favorite feather bed, wall hangings, and the like.” Madlen gave Joanna a look of avid curiosity, wishing that just once Joanna might confide in her, share those intimate details about which she could now only speculate. But Joanna was silent, and she began to pick up the discarded dresses with a sigh of frustration. So much excitement—Lord Gruffydd’s confinement, Lord Llewelyn’s quarrel with her lady, war with the English—and she was at the very heart of it all. But what good did it do her when her lady hoarded her secrets like a miser?

  Joanna’s anger had not yet abated by the time she entered the great hall. In truth, she welcomed her resentment, her sense of injury, for it kept her fear at bay. Llewelyn’s silence was becoming more and more ominous. For the first time she found herself thinking the unthinkable: What if Llewelyn could not forgive her?

  Much to Joanna’s relief, Senena was not in the hall. She started toward the dais, while Madlen chattered on cheerfully at her side. “There is the Norman lord, Madame. I think he’s very handsome, in truth. And I’ve never known a Norman to speak such perfect Welsh; he sounds verily like a Welshman. Not that I mean to say your Welsh is so faulty, but—Madame?” Madlen all but bumped into Joanna, so suddenly had she stopped. “Madame, you look so queer of a sudden! Why, I’d almost think you’d seen a demon spirit of some sort. You know Lord de Braose?”

  Joanna swallowed. “Yes,” she said. “I know him.”

  As Llewelyn’s daughter by marriage, the mother of his grandchildren, Senena had every right to be at his court, however unwelcome Joanna found her presence. Senena made no more accusations, managed a brittle, bitter courtesy in response to Joanna’s strained civility. But she watched Joanna constantly, with narrowed grey eyes full of accusation and implacable hate.

  Will de Braose’s manners were less forced. To be taken captive in warfare was not an uncommon occurrence, and while costly, it was not shaming. Will accepted his plight with the fatalistic sangfroid of a man sure he’d eventually be able to purchase his freedom. If at Chester Castle he could see Joanna only as John’s daughter, he took care to accord her now the public politeness due Llewelyn’s wife. But like Senena, he, too, followed her with his eyes, eyes no less grey than Senena’s, and although not as overtly hostile, somehow even more disquieting.

  Joanna had always enjoyed their stays on Môn; she liked the island climate, loved the magnificent views of the mainland mountain ranges. But now she began to feel as if Môn were as much her prison as Will’s. She came to dread the evening meal, when she could neither avoid nor ignore her unwelcome guests, and she did whatever she could to make the dinner hour her only point of contact with Will and Senena. She took to riding the eight miles to Tregarnedd, passing the mornings with Catherine. In the afternoons she and Glynis went for long walks around Rhosyr, and when Glynis fretted that Llewelyn would not approve of their wandering about unescorted, Joanna then refused even Glynis’s company, continued her walks in defiant solitude.

  Ordinarily she walked in the meadows near Rhosyr, taking care not to venture into the marshlands that lay off to the west, where the River Cefni wound its way to the sea. But on this particular afternoon she wandered down to the beach. The strait was rough, the winds coming not from the usual southwest but from the east, what the Welsh called gwynt coch Amythig, the red wind of Shrewsbury. Joanna was just about to turn back when she rounded a sand dune, saw Will de Braose standing by the water’s edge. She spun about, but not in time. Topaz had begun to bark, and she heard Will calling her name.

  He was panting slightly by the time he reached her. “Why are you so set upon avoiding me?”

  His smile was challenging enough to sting her into a rude rejoinder: “Possibly because I do not like you much.”

  Unfazed, he laughed. “Do you know what I think? I think you’re afraid of me.”

  Even after so many years in Wales, Joanna knew but one Welsh obscenity. She used it now, snapping, “Twll dy dîn,” and then turning on her heel. Will caught up with her in two strides and, still laughing, put his hand upon her arm.

  Joanna gave him no chance to speak. She pulled free, faced him with such fury that his laughter stilled. “If you ever touch me again, I will have you taken by force to Dolbadarn Castle and confined there till my husband’s return.”

  He arched a brow. “I do not think your husband would like that. He gave orders that I was to be well treated.”

  At this moment Joanna did not much care what Llewelyn liked or not, and she almost blurted that out, catching herself just in time. “You’ve had one warning,” she said coldly. “That is all you get.” And this time when she turned away, he made no attempt to stop her.

  On one of her walks, Joanna had come upon an abandoned hut. A simple wattle-and-daub structure, circular in shape, it put Joanna in mind of the hafods she’d seen so often on the mainland, rudely built houses occupied only during those summer months when the Welsh drove their flocks to higher pastures. It surprised her to find a hafod here on the flatlands; she could only surmise that some unknown herdsman had once sought to fatten his sheep on the salty marsh grass. Whatever the reason for its existence, Joanna was grateful for the discovery, for October was a month of sudden rains and the hut provided welcome shelter, a solitary refuge from the antagonisms and tensions swirling about Rhosyr.

  As the days drew closer to October 19, Joanna was caught up in a treacherous tide from her past, a backwash of painful memories. John always weighed heavier on her thoughts as the anniversary of his death approached, but never so oppressively as this. Suddenly she found herself yearning to make a pilgrimage to Worcester, to pray in the shadow of her father’s tomb and have a Requiem Mass said for his tormented soul. So very strong was the urge that it invoked in her a sense of superstitious unease; what if John himself was struggling to reach her, beseeching her help in escaping the sufferings of Purgatory? But even if it was truly so, she was powerless, trapped in Wales by yet another of her husband’s wars.

  That was unfair to Llewelyn and she knew it, knew this latest war had been Hubert de Burgh’s doing. But she was not particularly concerned about fairness, not on this grey October noon after yet another sleepless
night, a night of tallying up grievances, marital debts long overdue. How fair was Llewelyn being to her? Was it fair to send Will de Braose to their court, knowing how she dreaded contact with any member of Maude’s family? Was it fair to let a full month of silence go by? And when he returned, what then?

  Would he expect her to beg his forgiveness, to disavow the action that might well have saved Davydd’s life? Yet if he was still angry, what choice would she have? She’d have to placate him, to be properly remorseful and contrite, if that was what it took to heal her marriage. And while she did not question the cost, for she loved her husband, she could muster up no eagerness for a reconciliation such as that.

  Glynis had insisted upon packing a basket for her, and when it began to rain, Joanna spread a blanket upon the hafod floor, prepared to eat a picnic meal under Topaz’s hopeful eye. The sun soon broke through the cloud cover, spangling the dripping trees with iridescent light and giving false promise of abiding summer warmth. However brief this respite from the rain, it was heralded by a resurgence of meadowland music, the trills of thrush and wren, the raucous cawing of jackdaw. Joanna even thought she heard the nightjar’s whistle and quickly crossed herself, for it was known to the Welsh as the Aderyn corff, the corpse bird.

  When Topaz bounded up, darted for the door, Joanna rose, too. Although she reached for her eating knife at sound of the dog’s barking, hers was a gesture more of inbred caution than of alarm, for she knew there were neither wolves nor boars on the island, and she did not fear men; it was inconceivable to her that any Welshman would dare to offer insult or injury to Llewelyn’s wife. “Topaz, come!” she called, and the dog came frisking back into the hafod. A moment later a man’s shadow fell across the doorway, blocking out the sun.

  “Jesú, but you’re a hard woman to track down,” Will complained, bending over to pat the spaniel, who was—to Joanna’s intense annoyance—fawning upon him as if he were family.

  “You admit it, then?” she demanded. “You were following me?”

  “Of course I was. I had no choice, what with you bound and determined to shun me at court. I thought if I could find you alone, mayhap you’d not be so quick to bolt.”

  Joanna was infuriated by the imagery his words suggested, that she was a skittish, high-strung filly to be gentled with soft words and sugar lumps. She was also faintly afraid, instinctively sensing danger of some sort. “I do not want you here. And if you do not leave, I shall.”

  He shrugged and moved aside so he no longer blocked the doorway. Nor did he attempt to touch her as she brushed past him. But as she stepped out into the sunlight, he said softly, “You truly are afraid of me, Joanna. Why?”

  Joanna stopped, turned reluctantly back to face him. “Just what do you want from me?”

  “To talk. I think I owe you an apology.” He was standing in shadow, and she moved cautiously back into the hafod so she could see his face. He did not seem to be mocking her, but she was still assailed by doubts; who knew the depths of those inscrutable grey eyes?

  “You said you like me not. I expect I gave you cause, that night at Chester Castle. But you do not strike me as a woman who’d nurse a grudge. Can we not agree that I was in my cups and put it behind us?”

  “Yes…if I could be sure you mean what you say.”

  “I do.” He smiled, ever so slightly. “I cannot say I regret kissing you; that would be both unchivalrous and untrue. But I do regret hurting you, and I regret lying to you.”

  Joanna took a step closer. “Lying to me? When?”

  “When I told you I now believed in blood guilt for women. For I do not, Joanna, not for you.”

  Joanna bit her lip, said nothing. Rarely had she been so torn, so pulled by ambivalent emotions. Will’s words could not have been better calculated to disarm her defenses; she wanted to believe him, to believe Maude’s ghost could be exorcised at long last. But a second self stood apart and jeered: What was this if not the sugar lump? She wavered, and then chose to heed the voice of her heart. “I would rather bury a grudge than nurture it. If you truly want that night forgotten, it is, then.”

  Will smiled. “Let us say, then, that we are friends reunited for the first time in many years, that we last met on that beach at Cricieth. Agreed?” And when she nodded, he gestured toward the basket. “Have you enough for two? I’m famished.”

  Taking her consent for granted, he sat down on the blanket, began to root in the basket. “Glory to God, roast chicken!” he exclaimed, with such boyish exuberance, such irrepressible enthusiasm that Joanna could not help herself; she sat down, too.

  Will pushed the basket toward her. “Now that I think on it, I lied to you once before. You remember asking me why I’d come to your rescue that day on the beach? I told you it was because I wanted to do Gruffydd an ill turn, and that was true enough. But it was more than that. I was rather taken with you, Lady Joanna, thought you quite the most alluring, exotic creature I’d ever seen!” He grinned suddenly. “Every lad should have a memory like that tucked away, remembrances of a beautiful older woman who helped to guide him along the way to manhood. Regrettably, we never reached that road, but…”

  Joanna suspected she should be offended, but in all honesty she was not. Instead she felt a certain guilty pleasure in knowing Will found her desirable, even now at thirty and seven. But she did not think it wise to allow the conversation to take too intimate a turn, and she said hastily, “Will, I think I’d best say this plain out. I know that for many wives the line between friendship and flirtation blurs, but not for me. I want a friend, not a lover.”

  Will laughed. “Who has been telling tales on me—Gwladys?” He was one of those men who talked with his hands, and as he gestured now, he brought his drumstick too close to Topaz’s nose. She took that as an invitation, snatched it as Will gave a startled yelp and Joanna cried, “Stop her, Will! A chicken bone can choke her!”

  It took several chaotic moments before they managed to retrieve the bone from the disgruntled dog. Will finally collapsed, laughing, on the blanket as Joanna stripped the bone of meat and hand-fed it to Topaz. “I cannot believe all this bother about a dog. Are you always so tender toward those you love? If so, your husband is indeed a lucky man.”

  “Yes,” Joanna said very evenly, “he is.” Will was sucking on a finger, claiming the dog had bitten him. His hair had tumbled down across his forehead; it shone like silver where the sun touched it, and she wondered how it would feel. “I ought to be getting back,” she said abruptly, and he sat up at once, began to protest.

  “Not yet. If you go, I’ll have nothing to do but return to Rhosyr, brood about the exorbitant ransom your husband will demand for my release. Or try to coax a civil word from the sour-tongued Senena. On my first day here, I did but bid her good morrow, and she drew back her skirts as if she’d just come across a pox-ridden beggar!”

  Joanna had to laugh. “You have not changed as much as I first thought,” she said, and Will grinned.

  “By all accounts, that holds true for Gruffydd, too. He was God’s greatest fool at fourteen, is no less of one today. Tell me, Joanna, just how did he end up at Deganwy Castle? I’ve been indulging in some discreet eavesdropping, enough to gather you had a hand in it.”

  Joanna’s jaw muscles tensed. “Yes,” she said defiantly. “I did. I deliberately provoked Gruffydd into a heedless rage, hoping he’d force my husband into banishing him. Why? Are you going to stand in judgment upon me, too? I suppose you think a woman has no right to meddle in the concerns of men, that I ought to have done nothing, just let my son lose—”

  “Do I get a chance to speak? I think you ought to be proud of yourself.”

  “Truly?” Joanna said uncertainly. “You mean that?”

  “Indeed I do. I’ll grant you, I might feel differently if you were my wife and pulled such a trick on me. But since you are not, I am free to give credit where due. It was a deed well done, Joanna. Just think upon what befell Rhys Gryg last year. His own son lured him to Llanarthn
eu, took him prisoner, and held him till he agreed to yield Llandovery Castle. Gruffydd may be half mad; in truth, I think he is. But so is a woodhound, and if it bites you, you’re like to die.”

  “You do understand! I had to give Davydd time to reach manhood, Will, had to put him first.”

  He nodded. “Is this why you’ve been so unhappy, Joanna? Because your husband blames you for what happened?”

  Joanna had no intention whatsoever of discussing either her unhappiness or Llewelyn’s anger. “My husband does not blame me, Will. If I’ve seemed disquieted, it is because of Senena.” Casting about for a safer topic of conversation, she said hurriedly, “But I do not want to talk of her. I’d rather hear about you. I know you wed the Earl of Pembroke’s sister. And I seem to remember Gwladys telling me you have daughters. How old are they? What are their names?”

  “Daughters I have, indeed, in overabundance,” he said ruefully. “No less than four! My oldest is nigh on nine, the youngest still in her cradle. We christened them with the family names of de Braose and Marshal: Isabella, Eva, Eleanor…and Maude.”

  Maude. Of course he’d have named a daughter after the grandmother he loved. Fool that she was, had she truly thought they could ever be friends? Joanna rose, sought to busy herself in brushing off her skirt. “I have to go,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

  He rose, too. “Joanna, wait. There is something I must ask you. Your son Davydd told me that you and John were estranged during the last years of his life. Is that true?”

  “I do not want to talk about it, Will.”

  “Joanna, I want—nay, need to know.”

  Joanna’s throat had tightened. “Why? What does it matter now?”

  “It matters,” he said grimly. “You could not have loved him, not a man like that. What sort of father could he have been? The Angevin temper was one with legend. The Devil’s brood. And John…John was the worst of the lot. You had to have suffered at his hands, to have feared him.”