Here Be Dragons - 1 (41 page)

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Llewelyn had never before understood the appeal virgins had f other men, had always looked upon a woman's maidenhead as more ' an impediment to pleasure than a proof of purity. But now, with I anna, he found that virginity need not be embarrassing or inhibitin that it could even be enhancing. There was something very exciting Joanna's wonderment, in her surprise and her satisfaction. As sh sighed, twisted against him, he knew she was experiencing sensation utterly new to her, experiencing all the urgency and pleasure that th body could givefor the very first time. To diminish her pain and prolong their enjoyment, he sought to keep physical needs under mental thrall, making use of all the tricks he'd learned in the twenty years since he had, as an awed fourteen-year-old, discovered how sweet the fruits of the flesh could be, drawing out their lovemaking until he dared delay no longer. She stiffened under him, but did not cry out, and he felt the barrier give way with his second thrust. Joanna was gasping his name. He covered her mouth with his own, and she clung tightly, then turned her head from side to side on the pillow, shuddering, all but blinding them both with the wild tossing of her hair.
Yielding to his own need, he let it take him toward satisfaction, toward that ephemeral moment of release, so fleeting and yet so overwhelming in its intensity, in its peculiar union of pleasure and pain.
JOANNA awoke with an enormous thirst, a dull headache, and a profound sense of wonder. Alison at once approached the bed, offering a cup of watered-down wine. Reaching for it eagerly, Joanna drank in grateful gulps. "What time is it?" she yawned, and winced, for she'd suddenly discovered that her thigh muscles were stiff and sore.
"Nigh on noon, Madame. My lord Prince said we were to let you sleep, and to give you this." Holding out an unsealed parchment.
This speaker was a stranger to Joanna, was a slender young woman with a delicate heart-shaped face and thick chestnut braids. "Who," Joanna asked, "are you?"
The girl made a shy curtsy. "I am Branwen, Madame. Lord Llewelyn wanted you to have a handmaiden who spoke French, thought I might suit you better than Enid.
I would have been here yesterday to welcome you back, but we did not expect you for nigh on a fortnight That will not happen again, I promise."
"That is all right, Branwen," Joanna said absently. Llewelyn's message was a letdown, a brief two lines: "Cariad, I do have to meet again with the Bishops in Bangor, will be back by dark." No more than that unsigned but for a large scrawling double 1.
"Branwen . . . what does cariad mean?"

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"Cariad? Why, that is Welsh for 'beloved/ Madame," she said, and na sank back, smiling, upon the pillow.
VER had an afternoon passed with such excruciating slowness. Never h A Joanna so begrudged daylight its domain. But with the coming of Husk had come, too, the snow. Joanna's spirits plummeted. When it s evident even to her that Llewelyn was not going to return in time for dinner, if he returned at all, she went off to preside over a glum meal in the great hall. The snow slackened somewhat as the evening dragged on, and twice the arrival of latecomers sent her flying to the window, watching hopefully as they dismounted in the bailey. The third time horsemen rode in, she did not even bother to look, having at last accepted the obvious, that Llewelyn had decided to pass the night in Bangor. But then Alison exclaimed, "Madame, I see lights in your lord's chambers!"
Joanna's excitement was contagious, and Alison and Branwen enthusiastically set about making her ready for Llewelyn, brushing out her hair, applying strategic daubs of perfume. Looking into the mirror Alison held up, Joanna was, for once, pleased with what she saw. Her eyes reflected the color of her moss-green gown, and she was becomingly flushed, a flush that seemed to be spreading through her entire body, the throbbing, languid warmth that claimed her each time she let herself think upon their lovemaking.
"My lady ..." Alison turned slowly from the window. Not looking at Joanna's face, she said, "The lights . . . they've gone out."
Joanna put the mirror down. "Of course," she said steadily. "I did not stop to think; after a ride in such foul weather, my lord husband would be exhausted, in truth." But the reasonableness of that did little to ease her hurt. Could he not at least have come in to bid her good night?
Once in bed, she found it difficult to sleep. The memories of what she and
Llewelyn had done last night in this bed were too vivid, too real. At last she dozed, only to be awakened with a shock, with the feel °f an icy breath against her cheek. Llewelyn was sitting on the bed, shook snow onto them both as he leaned over to embrace her.
'Not even a lantern left in the window for me, and sound asleep in 'he bargain," he complained, caressing her all the while with his eyes, an
ething eager and innocent in her face stopped him, and he said in-

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stead, "Now why ever would I want to sleep alone when I could sL with you?"
Alison and Branwen had discreetly disappeared. Joanna sat
'eep UP, reached for her bedrobe. "Where are your squires?"
"I sent them off to bed, thought I might persuade you to offer hand."
Joanna was as compulsively neat as Llewelyn was not, and sh snatched up his mantle and tunic almost before they hit the floor, folded them conscientiously across a coffer chest. By now he was pulling off hjs shirt, and she gave a concerned cry. "No! Over by the fire, or you'll catch your death of cold."
"I do not recall you caring where I undressed last night," he said and Joanna blushed and then laughed.
"To tell you true, I do not even remember undressing last night," she confessed, kneeling before him to help unfasten the cords binding his chausses to his braies. "It just seemed to ... happen." He smiled down at her, and marveling how her body's needs suddenly seemed to exist independently of her conscious control, she reached for the nearest cord, saw that Llewelyn's passions were kindled as quickly as her own. Her touch had been light, inadvertent, but as her fingers brushed his upper thigh, his reaction was immediate, pronounced.
"Women are lucky," she teased shyly, "for they can hide their desire so much more easily than can men," and Llewelyn laughed.
"Who wants to hide it?" he said, and stripped off his chausses and braies.
Joanna had often seen naked men, as a child had occasionally entered John's bedchamber as he was dressing, had assisted Ela in bathing more than one highborn guest at Salisbury Castle, had passed serfs bathing in the river in summer. She'd long ago mastered that which was essential in a society so lacking in privacy: the elusive art of seeing and yet not seeing. Now, however, she let her eyes linger upon her husband's body. He was taller than most Welshmen, his the lean, wiry strength of stamina rather than of muscle and sinew. He had an insignificant amount of chest hair, his skin dark and smooth, marred only by the scars of old wounds, scars that now took on a new and sinister significance to Joanna, one tracking across his ribcage, another angled toward his collar bone, a third slanting in a thin white line from his pubic hair down his thigh. Joanna reached out, traced its path with gentle fingers.
"That must have been a frightening injury."
"That, my darling, was not the half of it!" he said wryly. "There is nothing like a groin wound to make a man repent his sinful past." He did then what
Joanna had wanted him to do all along, put his hand on hers, showed her how best to give a man pleasure.

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It was to Joanna enormously gratifying, to find that Llewelyn nted her caresses and kisses even as much as she wanted his "It is v to understand how people came to use the term 'manhood,'" she i rather breathlessly, but how explain 'privy member'7" "How explain any of them, Joanna cock, shaft, codpiece, pizzle, word7 And in Welsh bonllost, gwialen, cal and those are just the polite terms '
"Bonllost," she echoed, amused by the unfamiliar phrasing, and then began to giggle "I do hope none of our children ever ask me which Welsh word I did learn first1" Llewelyn had taken her into a closer embrace, she could feel his hands under her bedrobe, and she sighed, said softly, "I think, though, that I
shall call it Merlin, in honor of the miracles it did work last night "
Llewelyn laughed, and drew her toward the bed "And I begin to think," he said, "that I do owe the English King a far greater debt than I first realized "
'LLEWELYN whilst we were making love, you did call me breila What does that mean7"
"A bmla is a dusky wild rose It does suit you, I think "
Joanna was touched almost to tears "Breila that's lovely " She lay back against him, cradled her head in the crook of his shoulder "I know I was a disappointment to you at first, but
"Disappointment7" Llewelyn raised himself up on one elbow, saw with surprise that she was neither teasing nor fishing for flattery "Has no one ever told you, Joanna, that you're beautiful7"
Now it was Joanna's turn to doubt him "No," she said at last, "but when I was about twelve, I do remember hearing Maude de Braose say I looked verily like a
Saracen "
"Who in Christ cares what Maude de Braose thinks7" Llewelyn reached for a long strand of Joanna's hair, pulled it across his throat "If Saracen women do indeed have hair like black silk, eyes like emeralds, and blood hotter than
Greek fire, little wonder men are so eager to take the cross, to reach the
Holy Land "
"Oh, love " Leaning over, Joanna gave him a lingering kiss 'That is blasphemous," she said huskily, "and the most memorable compliment any woman ever got "
In reply, Llewelyn dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose, then yawned Joanna chose to disregard the hint, not yet willing to relinquish 'he utter euphoria of the moment "Llewelyn will you tell me of TangwystP Did you love her7"
"Yes, I did " Llewelyn did not open his eyes, but the corner of his

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mouth curved in a smile. "Tangwystl was a flaming redhead, and she did fret over her coloring fully as much as you do over yours, red h being thought accursed since the days of Judas. But like you, she w fair to look upon . . . very fair."
Joanna did not begrudge Tangwystl that echo of past passion. S{\ felt no jealousy for a dead woman; all her anxieties were for a rival ver much alive, for Cristyn. Did he love Cristyn? That was the question she dared not ask.
"Did you never think to wed Tangwystl, Llewelyn?"
"I had not the right, had to make a marriage that would be to Gwynedd's good."
Joanna wondered why she'd asked a question with so obvious an answer. However lovely Isabelle was, she knew her father would not have married her had she not also been heiress to Angouleme, and Llewelyn was no less ambitious.
"Llewelyn ..."
He yawned again. "Joanna, had I known you were one for talking all night, I
might have thought twice ere I told Aldwyn to move this bed and all your belongings into my chamber."
Joanna stared at him, momentarily rendered mute. He was so nonchalant, as if unaware of what he was offering her. Sleeping every night in his bed, she'd be a true wife in every sense of the word, not just a consort, a political pawn.
And, Lady Mary, what it would mean, to be able to fall asleep in his arms, to reach out and touch him in the night, and, most blessed mercy of all, never to have to lie awake wondering if he was in Cristyn's bed.
"I thought we'd use this chamber for wellborn guests . . ." Llewelyn paused, belatedly remembering that a private chamber was no small luxury. "Or would you rather keep it for your own, Joanna?"
"Oh, Llewelyn, beloved, need you ask? I'd rather sleep with you in a hut than alone in a palace!"
Llewelyn could not help laughing at the extravagant innocence of that avowal, at once regretted it, for he felt Joanna tense. She'd turned her head aside on the pillow, and he leaned over, touched her cheek. Her lashes lifted, their eyes met, and then she said, "You knew?"
"Let's say I hoped," he said with a smile, and Joanna flushed.
"That is why I did not want to tell you, so you'd not feel you had to ... to be gallant. It's not fair to you." She bit her lip, all too aware that she was floundering. "What I'm trying to say, Llewelyn, is that I... I'"1 willing to settle for what you can give."
Llewelyn did not answer at once. He'd been rather bemused by her obvious affection for John, had finally conceded that, whatever his other failings, John had at least done right by Joanna. Now he found himself

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h'nking that however much John had done for her, it was not enough. Lot nearly enough.
"You hold yourself too cheaply, breila," he said gently. "It is true hat when I came to Chester last spring, it was to wed with the English r/-nc;'s daughter. But I did ride back through a snowstorm tonight for
Joanna."
21
TEWKESBURY, ENGLAND
Nopemfor 1207
I OHN leaned over the cradle, gazed down at his sleeping son. He felt no particular tenderness for the child, not yet; he'd never had any interest in infants. But he did feel a deep sense of wonder.
"Wherever did he get such red hair? I'm right glad that you are not a suspicious husband, love!"
"My father had reddish hair," John said absently, only half listening to his wife. But then he caught the scent of rosemary, felt her arms slip around his waist. For more than six years she'd been unable to conceive, to give him the heir a King must have. Had she ever despaired? Had she feared that he might put her aside, find grounds to disavow the marriage? He did not know, for they had never discussed it. He'd shrunk from ever saying it aloud, gripped by an irrational belief that to admit his fear would be to make it fact. Turning now, he looked at the lovely face upturned to his. How fair she was. But that had only served to feed his fear. For as the years had passed and her womb failed to Quicken, he'd begun to suspect that God had played a macabre and sardonic jest upon him, giving him as wife and Queen the most beautiful

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woman he'd ever seen, the most desirable bedmate he'd ever had-
-only then to make her barren.
When she'd suddenly announced that she was pregnant, he'd been stunned, and then wary, not letting himself hope. She could still mis carry, could give birth to a daughter; God might well see that as the ultimate ironic jest. But her pregnancy had been utterly uneventful, and on the morning of October 1, she had given birth to a healthy son.
"Geoffrey, Richard, Osbert, Oliver, Henry . . . and now Henry again, for our babe. Why have you not named any of your sons after yourself, John?"
John shrugged, glanced across the chamber at the monk hovering in the doorway.
"What is it?"
"Your son has returned from Wales, my liege. May he enter?"
John nodded, and a moment later Richard strode swiftly into the chamber.
"You've given me a devil of a chase, Papa. I reached Winchcombe this morn, only to be told you'd departed for St Mary's Abbey, was not at all sure I'd be able to overtake you."
"Never mind that. What news of Joanna?"
Richard grinned. "The best news, Papa. On All Saints' Day, Joanna did give birth to a black-haired baby daughter."
"Did she now?" John smiled. "She and the babe, they are all right?"
"Indeed, Papa," Richard said without hesitation. In truth, Joanna had not had an easy time; the birth had been a difficult one. But Joanna was now convalescing, was rapidly regaining her strength, and Richard, ever a pragmatist, saw no need for his father and Isabelle to know.
"A girl. . ." Isabelle was staring at Richard in dismay. "Was Joanna very disappointed?"
"She was not disappointed at all."
There was a pause, and then Isabelle said, "I'm so glad," but without any conviction. She knew that had she herself given birth to a daughter, not all the balm in Gilead could have healed so grievous a hurt. Linking her arm in
John's, she murmured, "A January return, a November birthour Joanna did not waste any time putting my advice into practice, did she?" John looked at her so blankly that she prompted, "Do you not remember, love? What I told you about Joanna and Llewelyn?"
John gave a noncommittal grunt, and she fought an urge to laugh. One of the traits she most liked in John was their shared love of gossipHe was no less interested than she in court scandal, enjoyed regaling her with bawdy stories and ribald jests, with invariably accurate accounts of who was sinning with whom. But not once had she ever heard him mention the most scandalous stories of all, those lurid rumors of his mother's youthful indiscretions. And he was, of a sudden, showing the