Here Be Dragons - 1 (34 page)

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It was obvious it had not even occurred to Llewelyn that Joanna etljpty might not find him to her liking Just as it had not occurred to jyJs to worry whether Catnn would want him, would share his sudden assion Ednyved reclaimed the cup of mead, wondenng what it would L like to be so free of self-doubt
With only one woman had he felt it, ^th his first wife Tangwystl, daughter of
Lord Llyvvarch of Bran, he and Llewelyn had often joked about it, the confusion that resulted from their women sharing a Christian name In the early y«»ars of trlelr marriage, she'd come quite eagerly to his bed But then the pregnancies began Six sons she'd given him in less than nine years, had died giving birth to their last-born Four years ago he'd married Gwenlhan, heiress of Dyffryn Clwyd, daughter of Lord Rhys, Prince of South Wales It was a brilliant match, but a loveless marriage Most of the time he did not feel the lack But there were nights, like this one, when he remembered the gentle, dark-eyed Tangwystl, felt the dull throb of an old grief
"So what mean you to do, Llewelyn wait for Joanna to grow up7"
"Why not7 If a wife is not worth taking some trouble with, who is7 Besides, I
like the lass, would rather she be content that\ not " Llewelyn half rose, beckoned to a cupbearer "Nor is my forbearance all that unselfish What man would choose an indifferent bedmate over an ardent one7 If Joanna needs time to reach womanhood, I'm wiumg to give her that time It's not as if I need her now to warm my bec}/ after all " Llewelyn smiled at that, thinking of Cnstyn
"Indeed, I'd say not," Ednyved agreed, so emphatically that Llewelyn knew he, too, was thinking of Cnstyn
DAWN light was spilling through the open shutters For a confused moment, Joanna did not remember where she wasnot ui^til she saw Llewelyn lying next to her in the bed At that, she remembered all too well She'd lam awake for hours, waiting for Llewelyn, desperately trying to decide what she could say to him
But when he'd finally come to bed, her courage had failed her again, and as on that night at Rhuddlan Castle, she'd taken refuge in feigned sleep
Llewelyn was sprawled on his back, even in sleep, he sought space
Me was only partially covered with the sheet, and Joanna saw now what e d meant when he'd spoken of his "share of hurts " A knotted, faded scar seared the skin across his nbcage, another, more recent, zigzagged fr°m armpit to collarbone
Reaching for the sheet, she took care in tucking it about him He acl a third scar, almost invisible, a faint white mark just under his right y row, she'd never noticed it before Her eyes lingered upon his face,

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traced the sleep-softened curve of his mouth. Was it so much to ha asked for?
A husband she could respect, a marriage of mutual affectj0 ? She could have been well content with that. But this . . . she could tak 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 corn of this passionate yearning except hurt? And humiliation. Again sh 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 vvife wed to a man who did not want her?
17
ABER, NORTH WALES
September 1206
J.HE 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 Mon 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 Mon, at Aberffraw and
Rhosyr. But she'd yet to see them; like so much of his life, that, too, was closed to her.

the tide
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. -jece of driftwood lay at her feet. On impulse she knelt, patted nd smooth, and scrawled her name in the path of the incoming ^ Beneath it she wrote
LLEWELYN, and then watched as the waves bed their names away. A dim memory stirred, took on substance. *va ^ she passed the time on another birthday, ten years past, lying in heather before Middleham Castle and laboriously tracing CLEMENCE ' d JOANNA in the dirt.
Birthdays had never been joyous occasions for her. Beneath the surcelebration lurked a lingering unease, a vague foreboding that she uld neither identify nor yet ignore. She wondered suddenly if her ,ersion might not be rooted in that long-ago Yorkshire birthday. How ivid it still was: her desperate desire to please her mother, her futile 'earning for a dog, the water stains upon her skirt, that closed bedchamber door. Two days later her mother was dead, leaving her with on]y 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. Peking him out on the slightest pretext, contriving reed-thin excuses to **ep him in her companyonly to freeze as soon as their eyes met, to md herself flustered, hopelessly tongue-tied.
Joanna did not know ^ ch she feared more, that he should now think her an utter fool, or a' he had not even noticed her peculiar behavior. She did know that e u have given anything in her power to have him with her this day, at 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 ngest daughters standing a short distance away, watching her with

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grave, wary eyes. Joanna started to speak, stopped; that road led tv, where.
Instead she knelt and, using a shell as a shovel, began to SCOQ 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 up0' 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 wall8 and towers, sprayed sand in all directions.
Grabbing for the driftwood/

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ssed it playfully up into the air, caught it deftly again, and earned it heu^phantly back to his young master tfl Gvvenlhan had begun to sob Marared flung down her clamshell as were something suddenly shameful Joanna did not move, watched ' Gruffydd whistled to his dog, slowly sauntered away She was as
3 ery as she'd ever been in her life, and it helped not at all to remind h rself that he was only a child She saw nothing childlike in what he d done, it was both deliberate and malicious, not to mention clever u0w to prove, after all, that he had not simply misjudged his throw7 She could not, of course, as he'd well known
"We can rebuild the castle, Gwenlhan," she said, as evenly as her nger would allow But their fragile camaraderie had collapsed with the sand castle
Gwenlhan sniffed, shook her head Marared was already edging away
Joanna made no move to keep them It would, 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 gam his fnendship 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 m 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 °und herself closer to nature, living a less insulated life, much like the Vast majority of her father's subjects

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She watched until the sheep were penned, then moved indecis
'IVi one waiuncu uiiiii uic succp wtic pcmieu, uicu uujvcu niaecisiv 1
away. She did not want to return to her chambers, was in no mood t put up with
Blanche's carping. She hesitated, and then remembered what Llewelyn had told her, that there was an impressive cataract at th end of the glen. It was, he said, a sight well worth the seeing, for th 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?