Reaching for the sheet, she took care in tucking it about him. He had a third scar, almost invisible, a faint white mark just under his right eyebrow; she’d never noticed it before. Her eyes lingered upon his face, traced the sleep-softened curve of his mouth. Was it so much to have asked for? A husband she could respect, a marriage of mutual affection. She could have been well content with that. But this…she could take no joy now in what she was feeling for the man asleep beside her. All her life, she’d had a horror of making a fool of herself; what could come of this passionate yearning except hurt? And humiliation. Again she reached out; her fingers stopped just short of Llewelyn’s cheek. In her innocence, she’d once thought the worst that could befall a woman was to find herself wed to a husband she did not want. But what of the wife wed to a man who did not want her?
17
Aber, North Wales
September 1206
The air was cool and crisp. Like cider, Joanna thought; it carried a snap. A fleet of rain-swollen clouds sailed across the sun, casting sudden shadows upon the sand. Even the sea seemed to lose color, to take on the chilled grey of darkest December. Joanna shivered, pulled her mantle closer. And then the sun broke through again, resurrecting all the glories of an afternoon in early autumn.
The unexpected resurgence of warmth and light took Joanna by surprise. It was almost, she acknowledged wryly, as if she wanted leaden skies and biting winds, wanted a world that mirrored her mood. Snapping her fingers for Sugar, she walked closer to the water’s edge. Yr Afon Fenai, the Welsh called it, the narrow strait that cut off the island of Môn from the mainland. It was, Llewelyn had told her, a deceptively dangerous stretch of water, for the currents ran very swift, forming sudden eddies and undertows; and where the tides came together, a lethal whirlpool, Pwll Ceris, had taken more than a few men to a death by drowning. Llewelyn had palaces on Môn, at Aberffraw and Rhosyr. But she’d yet to see them; like so much of his life, that, too, was closed to her.
A piece of driftwood lay at her feet. On impulse she knelt, patted the sand smooth, and scrawled her name in the path of the incoming tide. Beneath it she wrote LLEWELYN, and then watched as the waves washed their names away. A dim memory stirred, took on substance. So had she passed the time on another birthday, ten years past, lying in the heather before Middleham Castle and laboriously tracing CLEMENCE and JOANNA in the dirt.
Birthdays had never been joyous occasions for her. Beneath the surface celebration lurked a lingering unease, a vague foreboding that she could neither identify nor yet ignore. She wondered suddenly if her aversion might not be rooted in that long-ago Yorkshire birthday. How vivid it still was: her desperate desire to please her mother, her futile yearning for a dog, the water stains upon her skirt, that closed bedchamber door. Two days later her mother was dead, leaving her with only the memory of a tear-splotched, swollen face, ghostly white in the moonlight.
Getting to her feet, Joanna tossed the stick out to sea, began to brush the sand from her mantle. Foolish to dwell upon a birthday ten years gone, to prod and prick at old hurts until they bled. Of all she least liked about herself, her weakness for self-pity must, for certes, lead the list. Nor was she going to squander what remained of this, her fifteenth birthday, in feeling sorry for herself. If truth be told, she was to blame, too. Why had she not told Llewelyn plain out that her birthday fell in mid-September? He would surely have marked the day in some way, might even have taken her with him to Cricieth Castle. But no, she’d had to be clever, had to test him, making just one deliberately casual mention over a fortnight ago. Had her words even registered with him? Or was it that he had not thought her birthday important enough to remember?
How right she’d been to be afraid, that night at Dolwyddelan Castle. She did not want to love Llewelyn. But she did not know how to stop. He had only to appear, and all others ceased to exist for her. So far she’d managed to cling to the shreds of her pride, but how long ere she well and truly singed her wings? She was so…so obvious, after all. Seeking him out on the slightest pretext, contriving reed-thin excuses to keep him in her company—only to freeze as soon as their eyes met, to find herself flustered, hopelessly tongue-tied. Joanna did not know which she feared more, that he should now think her an utter fool, or that he had not even noticed her peculiar behavior. She did know that she’d have given anything in her power to have him with her this day, that she missed him as she’d never missed anyone in all her life before.
Alerted by Sugar’s barking, Joanna turned, saw her husband’s two youngest daughters standing a short distance away, watching her with grave, wary eyes. Joanna started to speak, stopped; that road led nowhere. Instead she knelt and, using a shell as a shovel, began to scoop up handfuls of damp sand. Within moments she had a castle motte, ready to receive the keep. She dug in silence, as if utterly intent upon her handiwork, not looking up until a small voice said, “Is that a Welsh or an English castle?”
Marared and Gwenllian were now close enough to touch. Joanna felt much the same pleasure she would have had a wild bird suddenly alighted upon her hand. “I do not know yet,” she said thoughtfully. “What do you think it should be?”
“Welsh,” Marared said, coming closer still, and when Joanna offered her the clam shell, she took it without hesitation. With four small hands to help, the castle was not long in taking on impressive dimensions: an inner and outer bailey, a thick curtain wall, a lopsided gatehouse that Gwenllian insisted she alone should build. Joanna deferred to their decisions, let them place the towers where they would. Nor did she try to draw them out in conversation, as she had in the past. And within the hour she had her reward.
Marared had settled back on her haunches to inspect their creation. She drew so sharp a breath that Joanna at once looked up, saw on the child’s face an expression of sudden dismay. Turning, she saw Gruffydd moving toward them. He stopped abruptly, all but stumbled over his dog. Since Adda’s reprimand on the day of her arrival, he’d not let his hostility blaze forth again. But it smoldered in his eyes, showed now in the rigidness of his stance, the set of his shoulders.
Always before, he had only to appear for his sisters to shun Joanna as if she were a leper. But Gwenllian and Marared so far showed no sign of flight, and Joanna took heart. “If we dig a moat,” she suggested, “we can fill it with sea water,” and saw at once that she’d said just the right thing.
From time to time, Marared cast nervous glances over her shoulder, but she stayed put; Gwenllian seemed to have forgotten Gruffydd altogether, so absorbed was she in deepening the moat. At last it was ready to be filled, and the little girls grabbed their clamshells, ran toward the water, Joanna following. She allowed herself one look back at Gruffydd. He was still standing some yards away, watching.
“Should you like to help us?” Joanna asked, knowing she did but waste her breath. When he did not reply, she turned back toward the water. It was then that she heard Gwenllian cry out. Joanna spun around in time to see Gruffydd’s alaunt hound smash into the castle. Within seconds the big dog had wreaked utter havoc, flattened walls and towers, sprayed sand in all directions. Grabbing for the driftwood, he tossed it playfully up into the air, caught it deftly again, and carried it triumphantly back to his young master.
Gwenllian had begun to sob. Marared flung down her clamshell as if it were something suddenly shameful. Joanna did not move, watched as Gruffydd whistled to his dog, slowly sauntered away. She was as angry as she’d ever been in her life, and it helped not at all to remind herself that he was only a child. She saw nothing childlike in what he had done; it was both deliberate and malicious, not to mention clever. How to prove, after all, that he had not simply misjudged his throw? She could not, of course, as he’d well known.
“We can rebuild the castle, Gwenllian,” she said, as evenly as her anger would allow. But their fragile camaraderie had collapsed with the sand castle. Gwenllian sniffed, shook her head. Marared was already edging away.
Joanna made no move to keep them. It wou
ld, she knew, have served for naught. But as she stared down at the wreckage of their rapprochement, her rage hardened into resolve. She would not let that wretched boy win. For four months now, she had been seeking to gain his friendship. No more. Let him hate her; she no longer cared. But she would not give up on his sisters. Today she had made the first breach in their defenses. If a direct assault would not work, mayhap infiltration would.
Walking up the slope to Aber, she paused to watch as a small flock of bleating ewes and lambs were herded into a pen. Shearing had already been done early in the summer; today the clipping would be confined to the greasy wool at each ewe’s neck and udder. This wool, Joanna knew, would be washed in cold water and then boiled. As the grease rose to the surface, it would be skimmed off the water, reheated, and then strained through linen. Once it was cool, vegetable oil and scent would be added, the resulting concoction being a highly effective ointment.
Joanna was rather pleased that she now knew something of the process. In fact, she’d learned much in these months in Wales, had watched with interest as goatskins were stretched taut on square frames, scraped with strickle knives, the first step in the making of parchment; watched as hides were soaked in lime vats to remove hair, preparatory to tanning; as mutton fat was boiled with wood ash and caustic soda to make soft soap, and whitethorn bark was soaked in water, boiled, and left to thicken into ink. At her father’s court, such activities were done behind the scenes; at Llewelyn’s court, Joanna found herself closer to nature, living a less insulated life, much like the vast majority of her father’s subjects.
She watched until the sheep were penned, then moved indecisively away. She did not want to return to her chambers, was in no mood to put up with Blanche’s carping. She hesitated, and then remembered what Llewelyn had told her, that there was an impressive cataract at the end of the glen. It was, he said, a sight well worth the seeing, for the River Coch cascaded over a hundred feet down a sheer cliff.
It proved to be a very pleasant walk. On her left rose the heights of Maes y Gaer, on her right thickly wooded hills. As the path wound upward, she could look back and glimpse the sea. She’d been walking for about half an hour when she saw a glimmer of light through the trees. She quickened her step, some fifteen minutes later came to a sudden halt. Llewelyn had been right; Rhaeadr Fawr was well worth the walk. It had none of the wild, surging power of Rhaeadr Ewynol, but there was a stark elegance nonetheless in that narrow ribbon of white water. The stream was wider here, so clear she could count the mossy rocks lining the river bed, and wherever she looked she saw wildflowers: golden rockroses, purple bell heather, snowy blackthorn blossoms, marsh marigold, others she could not name.
Joanna had turned aside to gather honeysuckle when she saw the man standing at the base of the falls. He turned a startled face toward her, then began to climb nimbly up the rocks. By the time he reached her, Joanna had recognized him as her husband’s friend, and she said with a smile, “Lord Rhys, you did take me aback! I’d not expected to see another soul here but a stray sheep or two.”
Rhys was frowning. “Madame, you should not be wandering about on your own. What if you’d slipped, fallen upon the rocks? May I escort you back to Aber?”
It was phrased as a question, but given as a command. Joanna bridled a bit, but curiosity won out, and she fell docilely in step beside him. She knew this man hardly at all, had spoken to him so rarely that for a long time she’d thought he knew no French. He put a hand firmly on her elbow, but made no attempt at small talk, seemed to be one of those rare individuals not in the least disconcerted by lengthy silences. Joanna studied him covertly through her lashes. He was, she decided, surely the most handsome man she’d ever seen. So why, then, did she find Llewelyn more attractive, why was it Llewelyn whose touch caused her pulse to race, her imagination to take fire? Mayhap because she’d never known a man who derived so much joy from life, a man so at one with his world, doing exactly what he most wanted to do, doing it very well, and taking such abiding pleasure in it all. But why seek out hurt like this? Must her every thought be of Llewelyn, when he had nary a thought for her?
“I understand Llewelyn does return from Cricieth in a fortnight, and then the court moves to Môn?”
Joanna nodded. “He has a…a plas at Aberffraw, does he not?”
“Aye, but he’ll go to Rhosyr. He has no liking for Aberffraw, not anymore.” Joanna had not realized her curiosity showed so nakedly until Rhys added matter-of-factly, “The Lady Tangwystl died at Aberffraw.” He did not pause for her response. “The Lady Catrin, my wife, did give birth just a month ago, was stricken after with the milk fever. She is better now, God be thanked, but she’s not yet able to travel. She is very eager, though, to meet you, and I would ask a favor of you.” He stopped, turned to face her, and Joanna realized he had not been making idle conversation, after all.
“When the court moves to Rhosyr, would you come to my manor at Tregarnedd? It would mean much to my Catrin, Madame, in truth it would.”
Joanna could find in herself no enthusiasm for meeting the Lady Catrin, not after making the acquaintance of Ednyved’s wife. But she could think of no graceful way to decline, and she said, “Yes, of course.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence. As they approached the gateway, they saw Blanche pacing back and forth distractedly. She gave a glad cry at sight of Joanna, ran to meet her.
“Madame, thank God you’ve come! Sir Hugh Corbet has just ridden in, is awaiting you in the great hall!”
“Oh, sweet Lady Mary!” Joanna tried to collect her thoughts, tried to remember all she must do for an honored guest. Give orders for a special meal, one of several courses, ask Llywarch to sing for Hugh. See that a chamber was prepared for his stay, that his men were bedded down, too. What else? Jesú, what of a bath?
Joanna came to a sudden stop. It was customary, of course, to offer a bath to any guest planning to pass the night. If the guest was of high rank, it was expected that the lady of the manor herself would assist him in bathing. To neglect so basic a courtesy would be no small insult. But Isabelle had never performed such tasks; was a Princess, too, exempt? Nor did she even know if this ancient Norman custom was followed amongst the Welsh. It would be dreadful to slight her husband’s stepfather. But neither did she want to embarrass Llewelyn by turning her hand to a task better left to her maids. If only she knew what was expected of her, if only there was a woman she could ask.
Well, she must blunder through as best she could. Mayhap Hugh would give her some hint as to what he expected. Why was it that, the first time she had to act on Llewelyn’s behalf, the guest must be one so important, must be her husband’s kin?
Hugh resolved her dilemma, however, in a way she’d not anticipated. He could not pass the night, he explained regretfully, for it was urgent that he reach Llewelyn as soon as possible.
“I fear Llewelyn is some miles to the south, in the commote of Eifionydd. He is building a seacoast castle at Cricieth, wanted to judge the progress for himself. If you are set upon departing in such haste, we will gladly provide you with an escort and fresh mounts.” Trying to hide her relief, Joanna racked her brains to recall what little she knew of Welsh geography. “You could pass the night at Dolwyddelan, or at Beddgelert Priory, should you get that far.” She hesitated, for the first time seeing the fatigue already well etched into Hugh’s face.
“Sir Hugh, may I ask why you are in such a rush to see my husband? Is there trouble?”
“Of a sort.” He drew her toward the privacy of the window seat, said in a low voice, “Prince Gwenwynwyn of Powys has been a widower since the spring. Two days ago he was wed to my niece Margaret Corbet, my brother Robert’s daughter. I want to get to Llewelyn ere he hears of it from anyone else.”
Joanna needed to hear no more; after four months as Llewelyn’s wife, she had no doubts whatsoever as to what his reaction would be. “It sounds rather as if it were something of a hole-and-corner marriage,” she said coolly. “Why? To keep
Llewelyn from finding out beforehand?”
“Exactly.” Hugh grimaced. “My brother can be a fool at times. Had I only been consulted, I’d have told him Llewelyn would be sure to take such a marriage as a personal insult. But he pays too much heed these days to my nephew Tom, and Tom is no great thinker. Neither he nor Rob seems to realize that times have changed. It did work well once to play off the Welsh princes, one against the other. Fifteen years ago, such a marriage would have been a shrewd maneuver. But those days are gone. Gwenwynwyn’s goodwill counts for little against Llewelyn’s. I only hope they do not have to learn that to their cost.”
“What will Llewelyn do?”
“For the moment, nothing. It’s done and beyond changing. But he’s not likely to forget, even less likely to forgive. Stupid and shortsighted, the both of them. They have yet to get it into their heads that Llewelyn is not just another Welsh prince, to be bought off or duped as their need dictates. I’ve told them that the day may well come when he’ll hold all of Wales, but they laugh. Fools. I only do hope I’m wrong, for Llewelyn’s sake as much as ours. No English king could ever permit a Welsh prince to wield so much power; John would have no choice but to break him. I, for one, would not want—” He stopped suddenly, having remembered too late to whom he was speaking.
Joanna had gone very white; her eyes suddenly seemed enormous, so dark they were almost black. “Do not say that,” she pleaded. “That must never happen.”
Cursing himself for his clumsiness, Hugh made haste to repair the damage done. “Indeed it will not, Lady Joanna,” he said soothingly. “When I am tired, my tongue tends to outrun my brain; such talk means nothing. Your husband and father are more than allies of the moment; you are the living link that binds them together.”