Elen, like Llewelyn and Davydd, spoke French with Joanna, partly from habit, partly for the greater privacy it accorded their conversations, and partly because their French was more fluent than Joanna’s Welsh. She was surprised now to hear her mother murmur, as if to herself, “Un pechod a lusg gant ar ei ol.”
“One sin draws a hundred after it? Ah, Mama, you’re too hard on yourself.”
“Am I? I think not, Elen.” Joanna turned away, stared blindly out to sea. “That poor little lass,” she said softly. “How bewildered she must be, how fearful…”
15
Cricieth, North Wales
September 1230
Will de Braose was not entirely unmourned. There was one who grieved for him—his ten-year-old daughter. Isabella’s was a world of restrictive boundaries, a life of absolutes and order, subject at all times to the stringent, exacting disciplines laid down by Eva de Braose. A timid child, Isabella had learned obedience at an early age, but she had also learned to fear her mother. Eva was the bedrock to which their family clung, anchor and mainstay, and she ruled her small domain with a tight rein—in Will’s absences. For into this cloistered citadel of enforced serenity, Will would burst like a flaming comet, trailing the real world in his wake like celestial vapors. He invariably disrupted daily routine, unsettled the servants, and took malicious pleasure in disobliging his coolly competent wife. Isabella—quite simply and unknowingly—he bedazzled.
To a child nurtured upon reprimands, starved for affection, it was not difficult to unearth evidence of love in Will’s benign neglect, to magnify his careless kindnesses to epic proportions. Isabella treasured his smiles, the small gifts he would occasionally bestow, kept a lock of his bright blond hair in her birthday locket. His death had devastated her, and her grieving was all the greater for its secret, unsanctioned nature. That her mother did not mourn Will, the child well knew, and fear made her mute, for she could not risk Eva’s disapproval. Now that Will was dead, Eva’s favor was all the more precious, was all she had.
Eva had spared her eldest daughter none of the sordid circumstances of Will’s death, but that account was too brutal, too degrading for the child to accept. In self-defense, she set about weaving Eva’s ugly facts into a softer pattern, one that reflected the colors of romance and high tragedy. All the minstrel tales that so enthralled her celebrated the splendors of illicit passions, celebrated star-crossed lovers like Arthur’s Queen and the brave Lancelot, Tristan and the fair Iseult. So it must have been for Papa and the Lady Joanna, she decided, and she found comfort in casting Will as the gallant knight who died for love, Joanna as the tragic beauty who’d loved him as Eva did not. And then her mother called her into the solar at Abergavenny Castle, told her that the plight troth still held, that she must wed Llewelyn’s son at summer’s end.
Although Eva de Braose had no qualms about marrying her daughter to a son of the man responsible for her husband’s death, she did feel it would not be seemly for her to attend the wedding. As the Earl of Pembroke was in Brittany, it fell upon his young wife Nell and Gilbert, another of Eva’s brothers, to escort Isabella to Cricieth.
Nell slowed her mare, dropped back to ride at Isabella’s side. “We’re but a few miles from Cricieth Castle, will be there by noon.” Isabella’s was by nature a pale, delicate complexion, but it showed now such a waxy whiteness that Nell grew alarmed. Poor little bird, she thought, and sought for words of cheer. “I shall be your aunt twice over come the morrow, for not only is my lord husband brother to your lady mother, the Lord Davydd is my nephew. Passing strange, I know, for he is a full seven years older than I! But he is a good man, Isabella, will treat you kindly.” Would he, though? How could she be sure? In truth, she did not know Davydd well at all, could only wonder what had motivated him to make such a marriage as this.
Isabella swallowed. “Cricieth…is this where my father died?”
“No, lass. That was at Aber.”
“He’s buried there…at Aber?”
“Yes,” Nell said, all the while heaping mental curses upon the head of her sister-in-law. Whatever ailed Eva? Had she told the child nothing?
“Aunt Nell…will they let me visit Papa’s grave?”
“Jesú!” Nell turned sharply in the saddle, stared at the child. Merciful Christ, the lass loved her father! Damn Eva de Braose for this! How could she not know? Or was it that she did not care? “Yes, sweeting, I am sure they will,” she said hastily, making a silent vow that she’d somehow see to it.
“I dared not ask Mama about her…about the Lady Joanna. Aunt Nell, will you tell me what befell her? Will she…will she be at Cricieth?”
Nell was getting in over her depth. She ought never to have agreed to this. She may be the child’s aunt, but she was also Joanna’s sister. At least, though, she could reassure the lass on this one point. “No, dearest, Joanna is not at Cricieth. You need not see her, not ever, for she has been sent away in disgrace.”
“Oh…” An involuntary sound, a quavering sigh that communicated to Nell the unlikeliest of emotions, disappointment. Nell subsided into a baffled silence. She pitied Isabella, but was perplexed by her, too. She’d never known her own father, for John had died before her first birthday. But she had tried to imagine how she’d feel if she were being forced to marry into a family responsible for her brother Henry’s death, and that only showed her how deep and divergent were the differences between her and Isabella de Braose, for she would never have agreed to the wedding, would have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the altar.
She glanced reflectively at Isabella’s profile. A pity the lass did not have more pluck. A lamb to the slaughter, in truth, and what could she do to help? “Isabella, I’m going to speak right plainly. As you’re to be Davydd’s wife, all you can do now is seek to make the best of it.”
“Will they…” Isabella’s voice was tremulous, faltering. “Will they hate me?”
“No, of course not,” Nell said, somewhat impatiently, for that was a question she’d never have asked. The hatred would have been hers. But she could sense in Isabella only fear.
As they entered the great hall, Isabella balked suddenly, and Nell slipped a supportive arm around her waist. “When we reach the dais, remember to make your curtsy. Lord Davydd is the one at Lord Llewelyn’s right, and those are Davydd’s sisters, the Lady Elen, Countess of Huntingdon, and the Lady Gwladys de Mortimer. Come forward now, Isabella, and greet them.” Still Isabella did not move; she was trembling so violently that Nell could only hope she’d not shame them by fainting. She murmured soothing words of reassurance, and when they had no effect, she hissed, “Isabella, show some spirit!” And that worked; Isabella had been taught unquestioning obedience. She followed Nell toward the dais, clinging to her arm.
It did not surprise Llewelyn that Isabella was so fair, for both Will and Eva de Braose had flaxen hair. Still, the sight of the child’s blonde braids triggered a sudden, sharp memory. He could see again her father standing on the gallows, the sun gilding his hair with a silvery sheen. He’d never looked so young, so vital and alive as he did then, in his last moments of life. And as Llewelyn had watched, all he could see was that blond head cradled in Joanna’s lap. He shook off the past with difficulty, moved down the steps of the dais.
“Look at me, child,” he said quietly. Isabella did as he bade. To his relief, she did not have Will’s smoke-grey eyes; hers were a soft misty blue. “You are very welcome at my court, Isabella. I hope in time you’ll come to feel at home with us.” But his words sank like stones into the depths of the child’s fear, left no impression, not even a ripple.
Davydd had no better luck. He was not particularly at ease with children, and found himself at a loss now. Feeling rather foolish, he murmured conventional words of welcome, handed Isabella her bride’s gift, an opal pendant set in silver; it might better, he thought, have been a doll. Isabella mumbled an all but inaudible “Thank you.” She did not even unfasten the velvet wrapping until prompted by Nell.
“Look, Isabella, how lovely it is. Here, let me clasp it about your neck.”
Llewelyn was faintly amused by Nell’s purposeful, take-charge manner, so at variance with her ethereal blonde beauty. For she was a beauty, as young as she was, was very much Isabelle d’Angoulême’s daughter. But he could see nothing in her of John or Joanna. Never had he been so aware how fleeting time was, how unfairly and heartrendingly finite, looking now at Nell and realizing she was the same age as Joanna at the time of their wedding.
“Should you like to see the chamber made ready for you, Isabella?” he suggested, and Isabella nodded quickly. She was, he suspected, so anxious to escape their company that she’d have acquiesced no less eagerly had he offered a tour of the stables. But when Gwladys volunteered to take her, she hung back, blue eyes imploring Nell not to desert her, not to forsake her so soon.
“I’ll be along shortly, Isabella. I promise,” Nell said, and the adults watched in troubled silence as Gwladys led the girl away. Nell’s eyes, no less blue than Isabella’s but a good deal more vivid, flicked from face to face. A deal struck in theory could prove to be quite different in fact, in the flesh-and-blood embodiment of a terrified ten-year-old. Did they, she wondered, still think Buellt Castle was worth the price of purchase?
Gilbert Marshal cleared his throat, said with overly hearty assurance, “I daresay she just needs a little time. She’s a gentle, biddable lass, and it’s not as if she had a particular attachment to her father—”
“That’s simply not so,” Nell interrupted. “The girl thought the world of Will. And you need not glower at me like that, Gilbert. Better that they know the truth. Davydd, you will bear that in mind, and watch what you say to her?”
Her tone was a shade too peremptory for Davydd’s liking. “Yes…Aunt Nell,” he said dryly, but Nell was oblivious to the sarcasm, so single-minded was she in the pursuit of her own ends.
“Llewelyn, I must talk with you…about Joanna.”
She at once felt the change in atmosphere, the sudden chill. Llewelyn’s eyes grew guarded, gave away nothing of his thoughts, at once remote and utterly aloof. Davydd looked no less distant. Elen, too, had tensed. Gilbert hastened into the breach, said sharply, “Nell, you have no right—”
Nell refused to retreat. “Yes, I do. Who will speak for my sister if I do not? Llewelyn, it has been more than five months now. How much longer do you mean to hold Joanna at Llanfaes?”
Nell was the first one to put that question to Llewelyn; until now, no one else had dared. It may have been the challenging thrust of her query, as if he had to defend what he’d done. It may have been that he was unaccustomed to being interrogated by a fourteen-year-old girl. Or that he had no answer for her. But whatever the reasons, the result was a sudden flare of anger, intense enough to prevail over the constraints of courtesy, and he said curtly, “As long as I choose.”
No one spoke. Nell flushed, lost some of her aplomb, showed herself vulnerable, after all, to the insecurities and misgivings of adolescence. “I’ll…I’ll go and see to Isabella now,” she said, sounding so subdued that Elen, too, excused herself, followed Nell from the hall.
They walked in silence for some moments. Nell at last gave Elen a look that was both apologetic and embarrassed. “I did not help Joanna much, did I?”
“No,” Elen said tartly. “For certes, you did not.”
“I meant well, truly I did,” Nell said, and sighed. “Henry says I’m too forthright for my own good. I suspect that’s a polite way of saying I talk too much. But Elen, do you not think it strange that your father has not yet divorced Joanna?”
“Yes,” Elen admitted, and she, too, sighed. “Yes…I do.”
Elen had persuaded her husband to come back to Wales for Llewelyn’s Christmas court at Aber. She understood the political considerations behind Llewelyn’s choice; he could not let his subjects think him reluctant to return to his chief residence. But it was a political decision undertaken at great personal cost; never had Elen seen her father look so haggard, so bone-weary, so suddenly aged. Aber’s atmosphere was proving oppressive to them all. An aura of gloom overhung the court, and the Christmas revelries were muted, lacking spontaneity or any genuine sense of joy.
Elen was standing with her husband John, and with Gwladys and Ralph de Mortimer, for Gwladys, too, had felt the need to be with her father on this particular Christmas Eve. As Elen watched, Isabella bade Davydd good night and made an unheralded, unnoticed departure from the hall. “That poor little lass,” she said sadly, unconsciously echoing Joanna’s prophetic judgment. As difficult as it was for Papa and Davydd to be back at Aber, might it not be hardest of all upon Will’s daughter? “That child flits about like a wraith, does not even seem to cast a shadow. John, what say you we have her with us for a time?”
“Another bird with a broken wing, Elen?” John’s smile was indulgent. “Mayhap in the spring,” he temporized. But then Isabella was forgotten. A few feet away a woman in blue velvet was holding forth to a small but attentive audience; John recognized her as the Lady Gwenllian, wife to Ednyved. She had a loud, carrying voice, a distinctive laugh, and her words came clearly now to John’s ear, words of venomous contempt, words that brought a rush of hot color into his wife’s face, and he said hastily, “Let it lie, Elen. You do not want to cause a scene.”
“No? Just watch me.” Elen evaded his restraining hand, pushed her way through those encircling Gwenllian. An embarrassed silence fell at sight of her; few had realized she was within hearing range. Even Gwenllian was slightly discomfited, but too proud to show it. She smiled archly, said, “Lady Elen?” and Elen very deliberately tilted her wine cup, poured the contents onto Gwenllian’s velvet gown.
Gwenllian screamed loudly enough to turn heads, stared at her wine-stained skirt as if she could not believe the evidence of her own eyes. Shock gave way almost at once to outrage, and she cried, “You’ve ruined my gown, you spoiled, willful—”
Gwenllian choked off further utterance so abruptly that Elen knew there could be but one reason why, and she turned, found Llewelyn was close enough to touch. She felt no surprise that he should have materialized with a suddenness that a sorcerer might envy; she was all too familiar with his uncanny sense of timing. He took in the situation at a glance, said without emotion, “How careless of you, Elen.”
Gwenllian opened her mouth, closed it again. She saw her husband standing at the edge of the crowd, but he did not contradict Llewelyn; his face was impassive, and Gwenllian yearned to rake her nails across that dark, weathered skin, to damn Elen as she deserved, to spit and scratch and call down the wrath of the Almighty upon the lot of them. She did nothing, though, for greater than her fury was her fear of public humiliation. She bit down until her jaw muscles ached, until she could trust herself to say, “No matter. Who amongst us has never spilled a little wine?” She even managed a grimacing smile of sorts, but dared not let her eyes meet Elen’s. Or Ednyved’s. She’d saved face. But she would not forget, would not forgive.
“Elen.” Llewelyn’s voice was very low. As people drifted away, began to disperse, his hand closed on Elen’s wrist. “I would talk with you,” he said, and Elen could gauge the full extent of his anger by the unremitting pressure of those hard, bruising fingers. She followed him to a far corner of the hall, with Ednyved but a step behind. “Well?” Llewelyn said coldly. “You do owe me an explanation.”
“I think I’m entitled to one, too,” Ednyved interjected, no less coldly.
“I could not help it, Papa. She…she called Mama a slut.”
Llewelyn’s mouth thinned, twisted down. He glanced toward Ednyved. The other man nodded, said, “I’ll see to it.”
Llewelyn looked at his daughter, and then he did something he’d not done since she was a child; he tilted her face up to his, and kissed her upon the forehead, with enough tenderness to bring tears to her eyes. But when she started to speak, he shook his head, then turned and walked away.
Across the
hall, Elen caught her husband’s eye. John slowly shook his head. He was too well-bred to berate her before witnesses, but she knew she’d earned herself a long lecture on decorum and propriety. Gwladys and Davydd were making their way toward her; they, too, looked judgmental.
“When,” Davydd said, “will you learn not to act upon your emotions?”
“Never, I hope,” Elen said, and saw that her brother was not as disapproving as he’d have her think.
“Elen, do not mistake what I am about to say.” Gwladys paused, intent upon choosing just the right words, for Joanna was a sensitive subject between them. “I am not defending Gwenllian, not at all. But there’s more to her bad manners than sheer malice. Gwenllian and Ednyved’s youngest son made up a bawdy, satiric song about Joanna and Will de Braose, and then he was foolhardy enough to boast of the authorship. As you’d expect, Papa was enraged; so, too, was Ednyved. Gwenllian thought it prudent to pack her son off to Ireland for a stay, to give Papa’s anger time to cool. But the incident put some noticeable cracks in her marriage, and she finds it easier to blame Joanna than to blame her son.”
Ednyved had nine sons in all. Most of them were comparative strangers to Elen, and when she asked Gwladys for the rash poet’s name, it meant nothing to her. But it would from now on. Gruffudd ab Ednyved. She would remember him. She would make a point of it.
Gwladys soon wandered away. Elen and Davydd stood alone for a time, watching the dancers circle back and forth. Elen loved to dance, but she could find in herself now not the slightest desire to join the carole. “I would have expected Papa to be wroth with Gwenllian; his pride would demand as much. But I saw more than anger in his face. Davydd, he still loves her.”