Here Be Dragons

  “Have it your own way. Why should I care?”

  He turned on his heel, but his brother caught up with him after a few steps, said placatingly, “Do not be angry, Hywel. Gruffydd’s been in a bad mood these past days. Lord Llewelyn did forget his birthday, you see.”

  Hywel paused, willing to be mollified, and Tudur lowered his voice, said in confidential tones, “All Friday Gruffydd did expect a courier to come, and when none did, he was sorely hurt. He sought to hide it, but all could see it plain in his face, and the Lady Joanna…well, she just made things worse. She tried to make excuses for Lord Llewelyn, told Gruffydd how busy his father was, how preoccupied with Gwenwynwyn’s border raids. Gruffydd was wild, as wroth as I’ve ever seen him. But he dared not say anything to her, not after Lord Llewelyn warned him to mend his manners, to show her respect. So you did touch a raw spot with him, and that’s why he flared up.”

  “But why did her remarks anger Gruffydd so? It sounds as if she meant well.”

  “Mayhap she did. But there were others around, and Gruffydd thought she was deliberately calling it to our attention, that his father had forgotten him. And I know he much resented her offering apologies in Lord Llewelyn’s name, saying she had no right, that his father did not need her to make amends for him. I can understand that, Hywel, in truth I can. Would you want our lady stepmother to make excuses to us for Papa?”

  “No,” Hywel admitted. “I would not. If Gruffydd—Tudur? You hear the dogs?”

  Tudur nodded, and turning, he yelled, “Gruffydd! I think your lord father has ridden in.”

  Gruffydd was already moving eagerly toward the door. But Joanna was closer and, as Llewelyn strode into the hall, she reached him first, flung herself into his arms. Gruffydd stopped abruptly, watched as Llewelyn and Joanna embraced, watched as Joanna then took Llewelyn’s arm, pulled him toward the cradle. As if he had no other children, Gruffydd thought bitterly. Joanna was claiming most of Llewelyn’s attention, holding up their baby for his inspection, and Gruffydd’s sisters, Marared and Gwladys and Gwenllian, were clamoring, too, for notice. It was some moments, therefore, before Llewelyn missed his son.

  He found Gruffydd leaning against one of the wooden screens that blocked off the side aisle, moved toward the boy with a smile. “Have you no greeting for me, lad?”

  “Indeed, Papa. Welcome home,” Gruffydd said, quite coolly. But when he saw his father’s smile fade, he was caught up in a welter of painful and confusing emotions, no longer sure why he’d wanted to punish Llewelyn, for having forgotten his birthday or for loving King John’s daughter.

  “Are you angry with me, Gruffydd?” Llewelyn studied his son, and then grinned. “I see. You think I did forget your birthday again. Not this time, lad. Come, see for yourself.”

  Men with torches stood outside in the bailey, and when Gruffydd saw what was evoking their admiring murmurs, his breath caught in his throat. The stallion was young, a pure milky white, the luckiest of colors, and bred for speed. Gruffydd whirled to face his father, entreating, “Say he’s mine, Papa!”

  “You surely do not think he’s for Elen, do you? But he’s newly broken to the saddle, so take it slow…” Llewelyn’s cautionary words were lost; Gruffydd was already reaching for the reins. The stallion bucked halfheartedly under his weight, and Gruffydd guided him in a semicircle, grinned back over his shoulder at Llewelyn.

  “He’s begging to run, Papa!”

  “Do not give him his head till you reach the shore. And remember…I paid a fortune for him, so if you have to break a neck, better yours than his!” Llewelyn laughed, and the wind carried back to him the answering echoes of his son’s laughter.

  Still laughing, Llewelyn reentered the hall, looked around for his wife. “Where did Joanna go?”

  “To put your little Elen to bed.” Ednyved pulled a chair closer to the hearth, and Llewelyn sank down gratefully in it, pushed away the more importunate of his dogs.

  He’d been gone for a fortnight, a guest of his cousin Madog ap Gruffydd, Prince of Upper Powys, and because Powys shared a border with Cheshire, Llewelyn was at once bombarded with questions about the two topics currently dominating English conversations: the threat of a papal Interdict and William de Braose’s fall from favor.

  “I heard nothing new about John’s quarrel with the Pope. It does seem to be a standoff; the Pope’s man wears the mitre of Canterbury, but dares not set foot in England.” Llewelyn accepted a cup of mead, drank, and said, “But I did hear something interesting about de Braose. His friends and family have prevailed upon John to grant him an audience; they are to meet at Hereford on the twenty-fifth of April. Not that I think it’ll do him much good. There are few ruptures so bitter as a falling-out amongst thieves.”

  “What do you think be behind it, Llewelyn? It cannot truly be the money; de Braose has owed that for years.”

  “This is just a guess, Rhys. But I think de Braose pushed his luck once too often. The more John gave him, the more he wanted. I heard he’d been pressuring John for an earldom, and I think John finally ran out of patience. Either that or de Braose went too far, moved from implied to explicit extortion, mayhap made an out-and-out threat about what he knew of Arthur’s death.”

  “I’ve never been able to understand why they did not give Arthur even a sham trial,” Adda confessed. “Men might not have liked it much, but John had the law on his side. By resorting to a secret killing, he played right into Philip’s hands. John’s silence just gives credence to the more lurid rumors put about by the French: that Arthur was tortured, blinded, even slain by John’s own hand. It was a stupid way to rid himself of a rival, since none can be utterly sure the boy be dead, and I do not see John to be a stupid man.”

  “He may not be stupid, but he has no liking for the light, has a natural affinity for shadows and silence and deeds done in the dark,” Ednyved said dryly.

  “Do you want to know what I’ve always suspected?” Llewelyn set down his mead cup, pausing instinctively for dramatic interest. “That Arthur’s murder was an act of impulse, was not premeditated. I think John confronted the boy, and they quarreled; we know they’d done so in the past, that confinement had not broken Arthur’s spirit. It is my belief that Arthur said or did something which so enraged John that he gave the command without fully thinking it through.”

  Ednyved looked skeptical. “Why unpremeditated, Llewelyn?”

  “Because if Arthur’s murder had been planned out in advance, John would never have been within a hundred miles of Rouen that night, would have put as much distance between himself and the crime as possible—” Llewelyn stopped abruptly, and an uncomfortable silence fell as Joanna came toward them. Not sure whether she’d overheard, Llewelyn rose, moved to meet her.

  To his relief, she smiled. “Elen’s begun teething, and I do not know how well she’ll sleep, but she’s abed now.”

  “That,” he said, “sounds like a right appealing idea.”

  “What…sleep?” Joanna murmured, and laughed softly when he answered as she’d known he would.

  “No…bed.”

  Joanna stretched, gave a small sigh of utter contentment, and Llewelyn leaned over, kissed her softly on the mouth. “You’re purring like a cat, you know that?”

  “Little wonder. That was a very satisfactory homecoming, my lord.” She smiled at him. “I missed you so much. And I love you so much.”

  “I love you, too.” He kissed her again, gently, tenderly. “But my darling, I’d love you so much more if you were to fetch me some wine.”

  Joanna gave a splutter of indignant laughter, hastily culling her meagre Welsh vocabulary for the proper putdown. “Digrin,” she chided, gratified to see Llewelyn’s eyes open wide.

  “Joanna…what did you want to call me?”

  “A sluggard.” She saw him bite down on his lower lip, said uncertainly, “Why? Digrin, it is not…?”

  “Diogyn means ‘sluggard,’ love.” Llewelyn was openly laughing now. “Digrin…digrin means ‘unwi
thered’!”

  Joanna’s first reaction was one of mild embarrassment and frustration. She was coming to envision Welsh as a tide beyond her control; it was always sweeping in, inundating her in alien sound, and just when she thought she was getting her head above water, it went roaring out again, stranding her high and dry. But after a moment or so, she began to see the humor in it, and joined ruefully in Llewelyn’s laughter.

  “Sometimes I despair of ever learning your language,” she confessed, and he slid his arm around her shoulders, drew her closer.

  “You’d learn it faster, Joanna, if we were to speak Welsh, not French.”

  “But as tongue-tied as I am, we’d never be able to communicate at all then. Except in bed!” She settled back in his arms, and then, before she could lose her nerve, she said, “You were talking about Arthur before, were you not?”

  Llewelyn did not answer at once. “How much did you understand?”

  “You were all talking so fast…just Arthur’s name and Papa’s. It was not hard to guess the rest. Llewelyn…do you think Arthur is dead?”

  “Yes, love, I do,” he said quietly, and after a moment, she sighed.

  “So do I,” she admitted. “It’s been nigh on five years. Logically, he…he must be dead. But Llewelyn, could he not have sickened, died through mishap? Papa might well have feared to make it known, after the way his enemies have lied about him in the past. And if Arthur tried to escape…”

  She looked at Llewelyn in mute appeal, and he said, with all the conviction he could muster, “It may well be, Joanna.” But the day would come, he knew, when she would not be so readily reassured, when her faith might not be strong enough to prevail over fact. He smoothed her hair away from her face, said, “I’d rather not talk of John’s nephew, breila. But I never tire of talking of his daughter.”

  That coaxed a smile from Joanna. “You did just earn yourself that drink of wine,” she said, and reached for her bedrobe. The first time Llewelyn had said he loved her, soon after Elen’s birth, she’d been convinced that was the happiest, most fulfilling moment of her life. But later, doubt had crept in. Llewelyn had been known to handle the truth with less than scrupulous care; how could she be sure he was speaking from the heart, not merely saying what he knew she needed to hear? Bringing the wine cup back to the bed, she watched as he drank, and then, as he leaned over to put the cup on the floor, the words seemed to come of their own accord. “Llewelyn…why do you love me?”

  “Why? Because, in appearance and demeanor, you seem the perfect Norman lady—modest, reticent, aloof even. And then I get you in my bed, and you all but scorch the sheets!” He laughed, ran his hand caressingly along her back, down her thigh. “Not to mention your admirable good taste in loving me beyond all reason!”

  Joanna could not help herself, felt a throb of disappointment. But she should have known better, in truth, should have known he’d not take such a question seriously.

  Llewelyn reached up, drew her down beside him again. “No, you are not at all as you seem to be, breila. You are a constant surprise to me, and not just in bed. When I was a lad, my mother would oft tell me the legend of the bird with the resplendent plumage; shall I tell it to you now? When it nests in the grass, it is not easily seen, for it takes on the drab protective coloring of the earth that gives it refuge. But when it takes flight, soars up into the sky, its wings burst into flame, reflect all the glories of Heaven itself. As a boy, I spent hours searching for that bird…in vain, of course. Passing strange, that I should find it after all these years…and in my own bed.”

  Joanna had listened, mesmerized. “Me?”

  “You’re like that mythical bird, love. You cloak yourself in the muted colors of a wellborn Norman lady, seem soft-spoken, shy, and obedient. But that is not you, Joanna, not truly, and when I least expect it, your spirit takes flight like the bird with the sun-bright plumage, as when you did defy Maude de Braose on our wedding day…or when you burned my bed.”

  “You’ll never let me forget that, will you?” Joanna laughed. “But I need never explain why I do love you. How could I not, after hearing you say that? You are a man of many parts, in truth, Llewelyn, my love—Prince, warlord…and poet.”

  “That is merely to be Welsh, breila.” But she was not deceived by the playfulness of his reply, knew how deeply she’d pleased him, for she’d learned by now how highly eloquence was valued in his world. He’d begun to caress her again, and she wrapped her arms around him, soon forgot all else but the here and now, the feel of his hands upon her body and his mouth upon hers.

  The sensual spell was a powerful one; only belatedly did they become aware of the noise in the antechamber, of the pounding on the door. Llewelyn jerked upright, swore. But then he pulled the sheet up over Joanna, said curtly, “Enter.”

  Joanna’s reflexes were slower; she reoriented herself with greater difficulty, lay back against the pillow as Ednyved, Morgan, and Gwyn ab Ednywain hastened into the chamber.

  They wasted no time with apologies for the intrusion, knowing none were needed. “Llewelyn, a messenger has just ridden in from the Bishop of St Asaph. The Bishop would have you know that on Passion Sunday a proclamation is to be read in churches throughout England and Wales, laying both realms under Interdict until John agrees to yield to the Pope.”

  The news was not unexpected. Llewelyn felt no surprise, only rage. He cared little whether John or the Pope prevailed in their war of wills; their quarrel was nothing to him. But the pain of his people was, and he was deeply resentful that the Welsh must suffer with the English, that the papal punishment should fall equally upon both lands.

  “Damn them both to Hell,” he said, with bitter blasphemy. “Why should the Welsh have to suffer because a Norman King and a Roman Pope disagree over an English diocese?”

  Morgan felt compelled at that to say, “His Holiness had no choice but to do what he did.” But his heart was not in his defense, not when he thought of how long the churches might stand silent and dark, or of how long the devout might be denied the Sacraments.

  “Philip held out for seven months. But John…John could hold out for years,” Ednyved said grimly. “It’s nothing to him whether he can attend Mass or not. He’s not like to care even if the bodies of the dead are stacked up like kindling in the churchyards. Not when he’s found a way to turn the Interdict to his profit. Bishop Reiner says he has ordered the confiscation of all church property in retaliation, is using the Interdict as a license to loot!”

  “Llewelyn…” The sound of his wife’s voice startled Llewelyn; he had, for the moment, forgotten she was there. Turning toward her, he saw that she’d paled noticeably, and the hand she put upon his arm was cold as ice.

  “Llewelyn, you keep saying gwaharriad. That means ‘Interdict,’ does it not?” And when he nodded, she drew a sudden sharp breath. “Oh, no!”

  “Joanna? Surely you knew it was likely to come to this…”

  But she was not listening. “Morgan, Morgan, I know an Interdict means there can be no Masses said, no burials in consecrated ground, no confessions. But what of christenings, Morgan? May a newborn child still be christened?”

  “Yes, my lady, you may rest easy on that. Holy Church would not damn an innocent soul if it could be saved.”

  “Thank God!”

  “Joanna…” Llewelyn was staring at her. He started to speak, stopped, and glanced back toward the men. “We’ll discuss this on the morrow,” he said, but they were already retreating.

  As the door closed, Llewelyn tilted Joanna’s chin up, looked intently into her face. “Joanna, are you with child?”

  “I think so,” she whispered. “My flux did not come this month. But it is too early to know for certes, and I did not want to tell you till I could be sure…” She averted her eyes at that, lest he guess the truth, that she’d been hoping she was wrong, that she was not pregnant. She wanted his children, wanted to give him a son. But not so soon. Elen was not yet five months old, and her memories had not ha
d time to fade. Whenever she found herself remembering the pain-filled day of Elen’s birth, she remembered, too, her fear. But she was ashamed that she could take so little pleasure in this pregnancy, and she forced a smile. “If I am right, I may well give you a son ere the year be out. Would that not please you, Llewelyn?”

  “Yes, of course.” He took her in his arms, rested his hand against her belly, so deceptively taut and flat, caressed the slender body that seemed such a fragile receptacle for a new life, repeated, “Indeed, Joanna, I am well pleased.” But as she raised her eyes to his, she saw in them no pleasure, saw only the reflection of her own anxiety.

  23

  Hereford, England

  April 1208

  William de Braose was surprised and disconcerted to find himself hesitating before John’s solar door. He’d spent a lifetime facing down lesser men, men who lacked his cold-blooded courage, his utter indifference to the rules of fair play, his intoxication with high-stakes gambles. Never before had he shrunk from confrontation. But never before had he so much to lose.

  A moment passed, and then another. De Braose stared at the oaken door. And then he reached for the latch, shoved inward, and strode into the chamber, his the assured, loose-limbered gait of a man equally at home in the saddle or on shipboard, a man with nothing to fear. But he broke stride abruptly at sight of the others: the Earls of Salisbury and Pembroke, the Bishop of Winchester, a shadowy fourth figure beyond the range of hearthfire.

  De Braose was genuinely shocked, too shocked to hide his dismay. He knew John as few men did, had never made the mistake of underestimating him. But even he had never imagined John would take such a chance, that he would risk witnesses to their war of wills.