Here Be Dragons - 1 (3 page)

here
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pth us. Now why do we not see about getting you out of those hSimed clothes?"
T lewelyn rose obediently, let his stepfather strip off the bloodied, tunic, his shirt, chausses, linen braies, and the knee-length cowboots. But as Hugh pulled the blanket back and the boy slid under overs, he said, very softly yet very distinctly, "My mother's name is
Marared."
Hugh stood looking down at his stepson. He did not say anything, h t Llewelyn had an unsettling suspicion that he understood, understood all too well.
Left alone at last, Llewelyn sought in vain to make himself comfortable on the pallet. He held the compresses to his injured eye, tried not to think of anything at all. When the door opened, he did not look up, believing it to be his mother. But the footsteps were heavier, a man's tread. Llewelyn raised himself awkwardly on his elbow, and his heart began to thud against his sore ribs, for it was Morgan.
Marared had been only fifteen when Llewelyn was born, widowed the following year while pregnant with his brother. With Adda, small and frail and maimed, she was fiercely protective, but she'd tended from the first to treat her eldest son as if they were playfellows rather than mother and child. Llewelyn adored the dark, beautiful girl who teased him, laughed at his misdeeds, and taught him to view their troubles with lighthearted abandon. But it was Morgan who set the standards that structured his life, it was Morgan's approval that mattered. Instinctively he knew that his mother would forgive him any sin, no matter how great. Morgan would not, and that made his good opinion the more precious. He shrank now from revealing his shame to Morgan; that the youthful priest should look upon him with contempt was a greater punishment than any pain Walter de Hodnet had inflicted.
Morgan was carrying a platter. Setting it down, he tossed a cushion on the floor by Llewelyn's pallet, and spreading the skirt of his cassock as if it were a woman's gown, he settled himself beside the boy.
"The Lady Emma has sent up some broth, and your lady mother thought you might like a slice of seedcake."
Llewelyn smiled wanly at that; his mother's invariable remedy for any childhood hurt was to offer sweets. Morgan leaned forward, spooned some broth into Llewelyn's mouth, and then turned the boy's a" to the side, his eyes moving slowly over the bruises, contusions, and swellings.
You re likely to have a scar over that eye," he observed dispassiony and, not waiting for a response, fed Llewelyn another spoonful soup. Putting the bowl aside, he turned toward the tray, handed Uewelyn a fresh compress.

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"Are you ready now to tell me about it?"
Llewelyn flushed, shot Morgan a look of mute entreaty. But Mo gan's grey eyes were unwavering, expectant. Llewelyn could not lie, not to Morgan. He swallowed, began to speak.
Shrewsbury. Stephen. The meadow. Walter de Hodnet, his fear and "Welshmen are thieves . . ." He held none of it back, spared himself nothing. But he could not meet Morgan's eyes, could not bear to see Morgan's dawning disgust. He looked instead at Morgan's hands linked loosely in his lap; they were beautifully shaped, fingers long and supple, a symmetry marred only by the bitten, gnawed nails, chewed down to the very quick, an incongruous quirk in one with such a disciplined nature. Llewelyn kept his gaze riveted on those hands, saw them flex, tense, and then slowly unclench.
When Llewelyn had at last run out of words, one of the hands reached out, touched his hair in what seemed strangely like a caress. But Morgan's caresses were sparingly doled out and surely would not be given now, not after what he'd just confessed. And yet the hand had not been withdrawn; it was brushing the hair back from his forehead, lingering.
"Morgan . . ." Bewildered, utterly at a loss.
"I'm proud of you, lad."
" roud?" Llewelyn choked. "I shamed you, shamed us all. Did you not understand? I did what he demanded, I dishonored my blood, groveled before him."
"And would you rather he'd broken your arm, mayhap maimed you for life?"
"No, but. . ."
"Listen to me, Llewelyn. Courage is a commendable quality, and a true test of manhood. You showed that today, and may rightly take pride in it. But for a prince of our people, courage alone is not enough; it must be tempered with common sense. You showed that too, today, lad, showed you were able to make a realistic recognition of superior strength. There's no shame in that, Llewelyn, none whatsoever. Be thankful, rather, that in a world full of fools, Our Lord Saviour has blessed you with brains as well as boldness of spirit."
"I was so ashamed . . ." Llewelyn whispered. "Not for the apology/ but for the other, for saying my countrymen are thieves and cutthroats.
"And does saying it make it so?" Morgan shook his head. "Do you know what the
English say of us, Llewelyn? They say a Welshman s word is worth spit in the wind. And they are right, lad. An oath given W an enemy is made to be broken;
we understand that. We use what weap ons we have available to us, and when we fight, we fight on our term / not theirs.

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"These are lessons you must learn, Llewelyn, and learn well The ill come when you'll return to Gwynedd, lay claim to the lands °a' uncles now rule You must be ready to win back what is yours by y°" ancj above all, to deal with the English
'''We are not a numerous people For every Welshman born, the
H God has seen fit to beget twenty of English blood Our princes been forced to accept the English king as their liege lord But we not been subjugated as the Saxons were, we have not become a hon of serfs and bondsmen These Norman lords who rule England, d would rule Wales if they could, hate us above all others And still we live free, with our own princes, our own ways and customs "
Llewelyn nodded eagerly, intent on a lesson he'd long ago learned "This is because when the English come onto our lands," Morgan continued, "our people drive their livestock up into the hills and then they hide themselves The
English burn our houses, but we are not bound to the land like the English peasants, and when they withdraw, our people rebuild Nor do we despair when we fight the English and find ourselves outnumbered When we see ourselves losing, we retreatand hit them again on the morrow When they send armies into our land, we fade away into the woods, and they cannot find us
"If you understand this, Llewelyn, you must understand, too, that you've no reason to reproach yourself, no reason to feel shame "
It seemed nothing less than miraculous to Llewelyn that Morgan could heal the worst of his hurts with so little effort, and he gave the pnest a grateful smile Morgan smiled back and then said briskly, "Now is it your wish that I
tell the Corbets about this boy7" Llewelyn hesitated Although he was feeling more and more cornfortable about the role he'd played in that frightening encounter by Yokethul Brook, he still did not relish the prospect of confiding in his Corbet km "No," he said slowly "No matter what they did to him, he'd just take it out on Stephen afterward I'd rather we let it he, Morgan " For now, he added silently Walter de Hodnet Not a name to be forgotten
Morgan watched as Llewelyn touched his fingers to the puffy, discolored skin over his eye, to the swelling bruise high on his cheekbone, Almost as if he were taking inventory of his injuries And that, the priest new' was precisely what the boy was doing, making a private acknowlgrnent of a debt due Morgan sighed Vengeance is mine, saith the rcl On that, Holy Church spoke quite clearly But his people parted pany with their Church on this issue, they did not believe in forgivlng a wrong^ forgetting an injuryever
Here," he said, handing Llewelyn a brimming goblet "The Lady a nuxed some bryony root in wine, to ease your pain and help you

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sleep. Drink it down and I'll stay with you till it does take effect. I hay something of great importance to tell you. We learned this noon of death, a death that will change the lives of us all." Llewelyn sat up. "Who, Morgan?"
"Young Henry, the English King's eldest son and heir. We had word today that he died in France on the eleventh of June, of the bloody flux. He knew he was dying and pleaded with his father to come to him so they might reconcile ere he died. But Henry did not believe him fearing it was a trick. They are an accursed family, in truth, the Devil's brood." He shook his head, made the sign of the cross. "What will happen now, Morgan?"
Ordinarily the priest would have insisted that Llewelyn be the one to tell him that. But it was late and the boy was bruised and sore, in no condition to be interrogated about lessons of history and statecraft. "You know, Llewelyn, that the English give all to the firstborn son. Since young Henry had no son of his own, the heir to the English throne is now his brother Richard. So this means that Richard will one day be King."
"That is not good for us, is it, Morgan? If Richard is as able a soldier as men say..." "He is."
Llewelyn swallowed some more wine. "I'm sorry Henry died," he said regretfully. "Since he was to be King one day, you made me learn as much as I
could about him. And now all that effort goes for naught and I have to begin all over again with Richard!"
That triggered one of Morgan's rare laughs. "It is even worse than you know, lad. It is very likely that one of Richard's brothers might one day be King after him, so that means you must familiarize yourself with Geoffrey and John, too."
"All three? But why, Morgan? Richard will surely marry and beget a son. How, then, can Geoffrey or John ever be King?"
Morgan did not respond at once, seemingly lost in thought. "Aye," he said at last. "I reckon you are old enough to know. I take it that your mother and her brothers have spoken to you of carnal matters, explaining how a woman gets with child?"
"Of course! Mama and my Uncle Gruffydd told me what I needed to know ages ago."
A youngster growing up around livestock could not remain sheltered for long, and Llewelyn's were an uninhibited people who viewed sex as a natural urge and a very enjoyable pleasure; nor was theirs a society in which the stigma of illegitimacy carried much sting. Morgan was not surprised, therefore, by the boy's emphatic answer.
Actually, Llewelyn knew far more about carnal matters than MOP
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«n suspected, for he knew at^°Ut Gwy- The average parish priest gie Welsh or
English or Fren, '^ "? a ^-educated man; Morgan
* s an exception. Most were ^J^^ ** *»"** °f S bacy -s one that not many
%?^^^?- I* was not of bacy was one that not many co', Sh°Ulder with equanimity. It was not
3 uncommon for these L^*^?to f e/° ** hearths ^Z Uve-in concubines, and while e Ulurch officially decried these liai sons, they were tacitly accepts "*' *
PeoPle as inevitable and even natural. Unlike so many of his ^ °W dencs'
Morgan had never taken a wife or hearthmate, and the o/^! ere few when he'd found his vow of chastity too onerous fo/" Y3 flesh" He wa« always quite dis creet, and it was purely by cha^"" , Llewelyn had found out about
Gwynora. He had told no one, a^ W°Uld never have dreamed of savine a word to Morgan; it gave him S W3rm glow of Pleasure to keep a secret for this man he so loved.
"I know all about carnal 1/^*1' Morgan'" he said loftily "But what has that to do with one of /

that he yearns t/7 cross-"
"You mean go on pilgrimag/ tO the Holy Land?" Morgan nodded and then h/SI*fed again" "The fact remains however, that Richard has been knov^" mdu]8e in an unnatural vice He would rather satisfy his lust with me" with women."
Llewelyn's eyes widened "E^Ut' ' ' but how?" he blurted out then saw Morgan frown, and lapsed Jnt° a chastened silence. Men lavine with other men? How was that P°SS K'? He'd SCen enoug* animal! mating to be able to envision a coJP ng betwee" a man and woman but when it came to coupling betwee/* f6"' his imagination failed him' "Morgan ... do Richard's bX share this sin?"
"It is not a hereditary vice tle^elvn- it does not pass with the
S' M°rgan S3id dr^ " ?Cnry WaS hWU though h,ld,ess, Geoffrey's sins are be/°"d "Ttin8> but he does confine youn ^ fleSh f° adultery- As
<1Op'ng hlm in a Plumed cloud C' darling, I thought you ^°Uld have a Pi]l tonight. And I

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brought you this
She opened her palm. "See? It's a coral
Patet noster.You put it under your pillow and you'll not be troubled by x dreams."
She began to adjust the covers, tucking him in, all the while keep; up a running commentary about his "battle scars," telling him of fight his father had gotten into as a youngster. He had reached the age whe he'd begun to shy away from caresses, and she confined herself to playful kiss on the tip of his nose, saying cheerfully, "Get some slee now, sweeting, and when next there is a full moon, we'll go out by th moat and catch a frog. Then we'll draw a circle around it, throw a handful of salt about, and you whisper to the frog the name of the wretch who gave you that fearsome black eye . . . and within a month he'll find himself covered with loathsome, hairy warts!"
She got the response she was aiming for; her son grinned. But as she straightened up, Morgan touched her elbow, drew her away from the pallet.
"I do wish, Madame," he murmured, "that you would refrain from filling the boy's head with such fanciful thoughts. Superstitions of that sort are rooted in pagan rites and have no place in Christian belief."
Marared laughed, unrepentant. "Do not be such a stick, Morgan!" But then her amusement chilled as if it had never been. The dark eyes narrowed, the full red mouth thinned noticeably. It was as if he were of a sudden looking at a different woman altogether.
"I want the names, Morgan."
"Names, Madame?"
"The names of the hellspawn who did that to my son," she hissed "I know he told you, he tells you everything."
"He does not want you to know, Madame. It's better forgotten."
"Forgotten? That is my son, flesh of my flesh! I'll not let"
"Mama?"
They both turned back toward the bed. Marared leaned down, smiled at her son.
"Are you not sleepy yet, sweeting?"
"Yes . . ." The day's trauma and the medicinal wine had loosened Llewelyn's tongue at last. "Mama, I do hate it here. So does Adda. I'D1 so homesick, Mama. I miss Rhys and Ednyved and Uncle Gruffyd^ and"
"Ah, Llewelyn ..." Marared's eyes filled with tears.
"Please, Mama, can we not go back where we belong? Can we not go home?"
"You will, lad," Morgan said quietly. "I promise you that the daj shall come when you will."
Llewelyn stared up at him and then turned his head aside on "1 pillow. "You mean we have to stay here for now."