The words were already forming on Llelo’s tongue, blistering, accusatory, what he felt he should have said at Dolwyddelan and hadn’t, words scathing enough to banish all doubts, all qualms. He never said them, forgot them all as he looked into Davydd’s face.
“What is wrong?” He swallowed, aware only of fear. “What has the King demanded of you?”
“That if I die without heirs of my body, Gwynedd passes to the English Crown.” Davydd sought, and failed, to keep his voice even. “Do you not want to ask if I agreed?”
Llelo jerked his head toward the Tower keep that rose up behind them. “What choice did you have?”
That was a generosity Davydd had not expected, not from a thirteen-year-old boy, not from Gruffydd’s son. He repaid it the only way he could, with unsparing honesty. “My father would never have agreed.”
“Yes,” Llelo said, “he would. He’d have given them their accursed oath, and once he was back in Wales, he’d have disavowed it.”
Davydd said nothing, turning aside and swinging up into the saddle. But then he reined in his stallion. His slanting hazel eyes—the most haunted, disquieting eyes Llelo had ever seen—came to rest upon the boy’s face, and then he raised his hand in a silent salute.
Llelo stood watching as Davydd and Ednyved rode slowly through the inner gateway, not moving until he heard his name, a whip-lash sound that spun him around in instinctive alarm.
Senena was standing by the stairs of the keep forebuilding. “Stay right there,” she warned, and he knotted his hands into fists, tasted the salt of sweat upon his tongue as he waited for her to reach him.
“I cannot believe what I just saw.” Senena’s voice was breathless, full of shock. “I came out of the keep, and what did I find? My son—passing the time of day with Davydd ap Llewelyn!”
“No, Mama, you do not understand. Something dreadful has happened. Henry has forced Davydd to agree that if he dies without heirs, Gwynedd will pass to the English Crown!”
“God in Heaven! You dare to tell me that you feel sorry for that hell-spawn, for the man who betrayed your own father?”
“But…but Mama, do you not see? It is not Davydd, it is Gwynedd!”
“Oh, indeed, I see. I see that you’re not to be trusted out of my sight! It was not enough that you ran away, put your father’s release at risk, made a fool of me before half of Wales, and gave us all a nasty scare. No, you then had to go to Davydd’s sister for help. It is a bloody wonder you did not go to Davydd! And the worst of it is that I cannot even say I’d have been surprised if you had, for I cannot remember a time—not even once—when you have not given us grief, when you have not been a disappointment to us.”
Llelo was too stunned to protest, to offer any defense at all. He took a backward step, then whirled and fled across the bailey, and Senena’s rage drained away, leaving her sick and shaken. She’d said more than she ought, and would have called her words back if only she could. Llelo had not gone far. He had stopped by the east curtain wall, was standing in the shadow of the stables, and something about his stance put her in mind of Gruffydd. So alone did he seem, so forlorn, that she was suddenly remorseful. It had never been easy for her to admit errors, to offer apologies. After a time, though, she squared her shoulders and crossed the bailey, sought out her son.
“Llelo,” she said. But when he turned, she saw that she’d waited too long; his hurt had congealed into ice.
“I was not a disappointment to Llewelyn Fawr,” he said defiantly.
13
________
Brindisi, Apulia Kingdom of Sicily
February 1242
________
Nell awoke at dawn. From her bedchamber window, she watched as the last of the night shadows faded and the day was born. Along the horizon, the sky glowed with golden light, and the sea was slowly lightening, shading from a fathomless ink-blue to a luminous silver. As the sun rose above the town, it slanted off the flat, white roofs, cast the shadows of palm and oleander upon the powdery sands, and Nell thought she could have been looking out upon a Saracen city, so alien and colorful and exotic did the scene below her seem.
Church bells had begun to peal, summoning Christ’s faithful to worship; it was Candlemas, feast day of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, one of the most holy days in the Church calendar. Nell listened to the bells chime, and suddenly tears filled her eyes. She had never been one to cry easily or often, but in the past six weeks she’d found herself constantly on the verge of tears, for it was just six weeks ago that she’d learned of the death of her sister Isabella.
The sea was now a vivid, translucent turquoise; a ship had entered the outer harbor, flaunting a sail as red as the sunrise. “Simon,” she whispered, “oh, Simon, why have you not come back…?”
Nell caused a stir in the town by choosing to hear High Mass not in the Cathedral but in the ancient church of San Giovanni al Sepolcro. Throughout the service, heads kept turning in her direction, eyes seeking a glimpse of the Norman-French lady of the castle, wife to a Christian crusader, sister by marriage to their own lord, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily. Even after a year and a half in their midst, Nell found herself the center of attention whenever she ventured forth from the castle, for she scorned the custom of Frederick’s realm, did not go veiled in public.
Brindisi was an embarkation port for the Holy Land, and scarcely a week went by that a ship did not drop anchor in the harbor, bringing Christian knights back from crusade. Nell welcomed them all, entertained them lavishly at her brother-in-law’s castle. Life was lonely in Brindisi, and she enjoyed the company; moreover, one of these returning pilgrims might have news of Simon, occasionally even a letter. But in the past few months, the flood had ebbed, slowed to a trickle. Nell’s castle was empty of guests, and she felt free, therefore, to take advantage of this mild, sunlit day, to choose the beach over the somber silence of the great hall.
It was unthinkable that a woman of Nell’s rank should ride out without an impressive escort, even for a pleasure jaunt, and they made a large, rather unwieldy party as they rode north along the coast. There were Nell, and her two small sons, Harry and Bran. There was Mabel, her long-time maid and confidante. There was Dame Kathrein, who’d joined Nell’s household after the December death of her lady, Nell’s sister Isabella. There were Rhonwen, Harry’s young Welsh governess, and Philomena, who was wet-nurse to sixteen-month-old Bran. Then there were six knights of Nell’s household, who’d accompanied their lady more for status than safety; even in those lawless times, few men would have been so foolhardy as to molest the sister-in-law of so formidable a lord as Frederick. Lastly, there were two grooms and several castle dogs and even a few village children, trailing at a cautious but curious distance.
Kathrein was not surprised that Nell should have chosen to dine outdoors; in an age in which lords moved frequently from one manor to another, it was quite common to eat meals by the roadside. What did surprise her, though, was that Nell had thought to include her young sons. It was Kathrein’s experience that ladies of noble rank were not attentive mothers; nor were they expected to be. Yet here was Nell, the King’s sister, Countess of Leicester and Pembroke, kneeling in the sand by the water’s edge, helping three-year-old Harry to build a soaring castle of sand and shells. Kathrein could only marvel.
“Here, lad,” Rhonwen said, handing Bran half a peeled orange. “Try not to drop it into the sand.” She watched the little boy totter toward his mother, then lay back comfortably on the blanket. “How warm it is. A fair land, this Apulia, but so flat! I miss the mountains of Eryri.”
Mabel did not answer; she did not approve of Rhonwen, thought her to be lazy and cheeky and altogether too Welsh. Kathrein said, “There are mountains to the north,” but merely out of politeness; she was still watching Nell play with her children. “I’d not have expected a lady so highborn to be such a doting mother,” she confessed, and Rhonwen shrugged.
“I’d never given it much thought. Mayhap it
is because she misses Lord Simon.” The day was unseasonably balmy, even for Apulia, and Nell and Rhonwen had removed their veils and wimples. Several shepherds were now coming up the road, driving some malnourished goats. They were young and darkly handsome, and Rhonwen could not resist giving them a sidelong smile, hoping to shock Mabel. But they did not even notice; their eyes were riveted upon Nell’s flaxen-silk hair. Rhonwen gave a sigh of mock regret; blondes were even rarer here in Apulia than in her Wales. She helped herself to the rest of the orange, then glanced over at Kathrein. “Were you with your lady very long?”
“Six years. I was London born and bred, but I came out with Lady Isabella at the time of her marriage to the Emperor.”
Rhonwen leaned forward. “Are the tales told of him true? Does he really keep a harem of Saracen harlots?”
“Indeed he does, and cares not a whit who knows it! Whilst my poor lady, may God assoil her, was kept sequestered, verily like a nun. The day after the wedding, he sent all her English maids away, save only Dame Margaret, her old nurse, and me, and then he handed her over to his Saracen eunuchs, who watched her like hungry hawks!”
This was gossip, not revelation; the Emperor’s scandalous private life was an open secret throughout his domains. Rhonwen’s eyes flicked toward Mabel. “My French…it is not always so good,” she said innocently. “Tell me, what is this…eunuch?”
Mabel’s mouth tightened noticeably, but Kathrein grinned, entered willingly into the spirit of the game. “A eunuch is a poor wretch who still suffers from the most common of male itches, but who has lost the wherewithal to scratch it,” she said, and both women laughed. Mabel said nothing, turning to make sure the knights were out of earshot.
Rhonwen had reached under her skirt, was stripping off her stockings. She wriggled her feet luxuriously in the sun-warmed sand, then offered the rest of the orange to Mabel, a peace offering the older woman coldly spurned. Rhonwen shrugged again, popped an orange slice into her mouth. “Tell me of your lady. Was she young, fair to look upon like our Lady Nell?”
Kathrein’s smile faded. “Very fair, and too young to die. She was twenty-seven, just a twelvemonth older than Lady Nell.”
“It was God’s will,” Mabel said sadly. “Scriptures say, ‘In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children.’ ”
“Sorrow she had, in plenitude.” The sand had muffled the sound of Nell’s footsteps. She stood for a moment looking down at them, then sat on the blanket. “Enough sorrow for a lifetime,” she said bitterly, “even such a pitifully brief lifetime as hers. God’s will—or Frederick’s?”
Isabella was Frederick’s third wife to die young, the second to die in childbirth, and his enemies were already putting about malicious rumors of poison. The three women stared at Nell in shocked silence, but only Rhonwen dared to ask. “Do you think, Madame, that Frederick killed your sister?”
“If you are asking whether I think he murdered her, of course not. But yes, he did kill her. His jealousy killed her, Rhonwen. What sort of life did he give her? Henry might as well have wed her to the Caliph of Baghdad, for he’d have kept her no less cloistered. Four children in six years, cut off from all she knew and loved, her family, her friends, banned from his court, never seen in public, always under the eyes of his God-cursed eunuchs, his spies. My brother Richard spent four months with Frederick at Terni on his way home from the Holy Land, and he was allowed to see Isabella but once in those four months—her own brother!”
There was anger in Nell’s voice, but there was pain, too, and the other women hastily sought to offer comfort, each in her own way. Mabel pointed out that woman’s lot is rarely an easy one, while Kathrein felt constrained by fairness to say that Frederick had provided Isabella with great luxury. Rhonwen sat up, gave Nell a probing look. “I would die if I were caged up like that; my very soul would shrivel. I suspect, Madame, that so would yours. But mayhap your lady sister had not our need for freedom. She had a crown, after all, was surrounded by splendor. It may be that was enough for her.”
But Nell’s imagination, while undeniably vivid, was flawed in that she measured all griefs, all needs, by her own. “How could it be?” she demanded, so passionately that none dared dispute her. “You think a crown is a magic talisman, that it warrants happiness? I daresay Isabella could have told you otherwise! So could my sister Joan, for she found precious little contentment as Queen of Scotland. On her last visit, just ere she was stricken with that fatal fever, she begged Henry to let her stay in England. Of course he could not allow it, would have sent her back to Scotland had she not sickened, died…”
Her voice trailed off. She turned, stared out to sea, toward the sun-bright silhouette of Sant’ Andreas Island. “First Joanna, then Joan, and now Isabella. In just four years, I’ve lost all my sisters…”
That was not true; she had four half-sisters, born of her mother’s second marriage to Hugh de Lusignan. But none of the women were so foolish as to remind her of that now. Mabel reached over, touched Nell’s arm. “At least the Lady Joanna’s life was a happy one.”
“But of course it was! After all, she did marry a Welshman,” Rhonwen interrupted, to Mabel’s annoyance and Nell’s amusement. “And all know Welshmen make the best husbands and lovers.” Adding impishly, “Although I’ve been told that Frenchmen do right well, too!”
“Yes,” Nell said, “they do, indeed.” But her smile was fleeting. They knew why, understood her fears. Her brother Richard had returned from the Holy Land months ago; so had her cousin, the Earl of Salisbury. Why had Simon not returned, too?
“I am sure your lord is safe and well, Madame,” Kathrein said, as reassuringly as she could. “You must not despair, must not torment yourself for naught.”
Nell picked up a handful of sand and sifted it through her fingers, let the wind blow it away. “For naught, Kathrein? My husband’s brother, Amaury, died on crusade; many men did. I have not heard from Simon for two months. For all I know, he may be dead, too.”
Mabel and Kathrein were silent, too honest to deny that Death’s favorite hunting ground was the blood-soaked soil where Christ once walked. Rhonwen, however, heeded voices more mystical, more intuitive. “You love him, Madame,” she said. “You know his heart, the secrets of his soul. As his joy is yours, so, too, is his pain. If he were dead, you would know it. You’d not need to be told; you would feel it.”
Nell’s mouth curved in a shadowy smile. “Ah, Rhonwen, belief comes easily to you, for your people are poets. But the Plantagenets spring from less visionary stock. And yet…and yet I do think that if Simon were dead, I would know. Somehow I would sense it. How could I not?”
She reached then for the basket, withdrew a wine flagon. “Rhonwen, will you fetch Philomena and the boys? And Kathrein, you tell the men it is time to eat.”
Rhonwen rose languidly, brushing sand from her skirt. But she’d taken only a few steps before she stopped. “Look, Madame, someone is coming.”
Mabel shaded her eyes, but could see only a blur of sun-bleached sand. Hopelessly myopic herself, she much resented Rhonwen’s claims to vision an eagle might envy. “What do you see, Rhonwen?” she asked maliciously. “More Sicilian shepherds?”
“A knight is coming up the road. My guess, Madame, is that he seeks you, bears a message of some urgency.”
“How could you possibly know all that?” Mabel snapped. “Your Welsh second-sight, I daresay?”
Rhonwen smiled, quite unfazed. “He is too well mounted for a local villager, so he must come from the castle. And I can tell he is a knight from the way the sun strikes his hauberk; can you not see that, too, Mabel?”
Nell had risen reluctantly to her feet. “You’d best help me with my veil and wimple, then, Kathrein. He does come on fast; I wonder what—” She stopped so abruptly that she drew all eyes. The flagon slipped from her fingers, spilled onto the sand. “My God…” And then she picked up her skirts, began to run.
“Madame!” Her knights had been dicing on a level stretch of sand. The g
ame forgotten, they scrambled to their feet in alarm, hastening after Nell. But she ignored their shouts. Her hair had come loose about her shoulders, and she splashed heedlessly into tidal pools, soaking her skirts to the knees, never taking her eyes from the man on the white stallion. He reined in before her, sending up a spray of sand, and then reached down, in one smooth motion lifting her off her feet, up into his arms, much to Rhonwen’s delight.
“Well done!” she cried. “Did you see that, Mabel? He rides like a Welshman, in truth, like one born to the saddle—” At a sudden tug of her skirt, she looked down, into Harry’s bewildered blue eyes.
“Mama is kissing that man,” he said, and Rhonwen laughed.
“That she is, Harry, that she most certainly is!” She laughed again, then gave the little boy a hug. “Come, lad, let’s go meet your father.”
Harry took her hand, clung tightly. His mother had often talked to him of his father’s exploits, his battlefield bravery, and he’d been yearning for Simon’s return. But now that Simon was actually here, a dark, gaunt stranger in a travel-stained surcoat, surrounded by laughing, jostling knights, his arm possessively around Nell’s waist, Harry felt suddenly shy, uncertain, no longer sure he wanted this man to come back, this man he did not remember.
“Harry!” Simon smiled at his son, but to his disappointment, the child shrank back. Nell looked no less distressed. It was Rhonwen, however, who was the first to comprehend.
“You’re so tall, my lord,” she murmured. “I think it scares him.” Seeing that his son was indeed staring up at him as if his head were scraping the clouds, Simon reached down, swung the boy up into his arms. Harry was startled, for a moment seemed about to resist. But he was a good-natured child, and his protest died on his lips as he realized that he was now taller than his mother, her maids, most of the knights.
Philomena had just joined them, holding Bran by the hand. Simon set Harry back upon the sand, knelt by his second son. “Well, now,” he said, “so you are Simon.”