Here Be Dragons - 1 (5 page)

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himself marveling that two boys so unlike could share the same blood. First cousins they were, but none seeing them together would ever have guessed the kinship.
Rhys shared with Llewelyn the pitch-black hair so common to their people, but while Llewelyn's eyes were dark, too, Rhys had the eyes of a Welsh mountain cat, purest, palest green. His unusual coloring, thick sable lashes, and features so symmetrical as to draw all eyes were, for him, a burden rather than a blessing. He loathed being fussed over, and yet his startling beauty of face doomed him to be forever fending off the eushing compliments and effusive embraces of his doting female relatives, who considered him quite the handsomest male child ever born and took great pride in showing him off to mothers and aunts of less favored youngsters, to Rhys's utter disgust and the vast amusement of his friends.
It was possible to look upon his beautyfor there was no other word for itand to note his slightness of build and conclude that there was a softness, a fragility about the boy. That was, Llewelyn had long ago learned, an impression so erroneous as to be utterly ludicrous, and not a little dangerous. Rhys was as hard, as unyielding as the flint of his native land;
there was no give in him, none at all.
As for Ednyved, in all honesty he could only be described as homely. Lanky brown hair, deepset eyes of a nondescript color that was neither brown nor hazel but a murky shade somewhere in between, a mouth too wide and chin too thrusting, too prominent. Big-boned even as a small boy, he seemed to have sprouted up at least a foot since Llewelyn had seen him last, and Llewelyn had no doubts that when fully grown, Ednyved would tower head and shoulders above other men.
As he watched, Llewelyn suddenly found himself remembering a childhood game he'd long ago liked to play with his mother, in which they sought to identify people with their animal counterparts. Llewelyn had promptly pleased his sleekly independent and unpredictable mother by categorizing her as a cat.
Hugh, whom he liked, he saw as an Irish wolfhound, a dog as bright as it was even-tempered. Robert Corbet, whom he did not like, he dubbed another sort of dog altogether, the courageous but muddleheaded mastiff. Morgan, too, was easy to classify, for Morgan was a priest with the soul of a soldier, a man who'd chosen of his own free will to fetter his wilder instincts to the stringent disciplines of his Church. Morgan, Llewelyn had explained to Marared, could only be a falcon, for the falcon was the most predatory of birds, a pnnce of the skies that could nonetheless be tamed to hunt at man's command. Adda, too, was a bird, a caged sparrow hawk, tethered to earth whilst his spirit pined only to fly; when he'd told his mother that,

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tears had filled her eyes. But when she wanted to know how he saw himself, Llewelyn grew reticent, evasive. From the day she'd taken him to the Tower of
London to see the caged cats, he'd known what animal he wanted to claim as his own, the tawny-maned lion, but that was a vanity he was not willing to confess, even to his mother.
He had never tried to characterize Rhys or Ednyved, but it came to him now without need for reflection, for Rhys had the unpredictable edginess of a high-strung stallion and Ednyved all the latent power, the massive strength and lazy good humor of the tame bear he'd seen at London's Smithfield Fair.
Ednyved yawned and stretched, reaching for the woven sack that lay beside their bait pail. He shook several apples out onto the grass, tossed one to
Rhys.
"I daresay you want one, too, Llewelyn?" he asked nonchalantly and, without looking up, sent an apple sailing through the air. It was remarkably accurate for a blind pitch, landing just where Llewelyn had been standing seconds before. He was no longer there, however, having recoiled with such vehemence that he bumped bruisingly into the nearest tree. Rhys, no less startled, spun around so precipitantly that he overturned the bait pail, and, as he cursed and Llewelyn took several deep breaths, trying to get his pulse rate back to normal, Ednyved rolled over in the grass and laughed and laughed.
"How in hellfire did you know I was there?" Llewelyn demanded, and Ednyved feigned surprise.
"How could I not, with you making enough noise to bestir the dead? Is that the
English style of woodland warfare?"
He'd always been a lethal tease, and Llewelyn was not normally thin-skinned.
But they'd not yet established the boundaries of their new relationship.
Llewelyn opened his mouth to make a sharp retort, but Rhys was quicker. Rhys's pride was prickly and unpredictable, easily affronted, and he'd been embarrassed by his failure to take notice of Llewelyn. Glaring at his cousin, he snapped, "And Llewelyn might well ask if this is the Welsh way of welcome!"
Turning back to Llewelyn, he smiled, said, "We thought you'd be home for your uncle's funeral, were watching for you."
Llewelyn smiled back, and coming forward, he settled himself beside them on the grass. A silence fell between them, one that seemed likely to swallow up any words they could throw into the void. It was broken at last by Llewelyn;
he heard himself making courteous queries about the health and well-being of their families, falling back upon all the obligatory conversational gambits to be shared between strangers. Nor did Rhys ease the awkwardness any by offering
Llewelyn formal condolences for the death of his uncle.

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I lewelyn would have liked to speak freely, to explain that he'd not his Uncle
Owa.in all that well. But he felt constrained to respond ha conventional politeness, and thus found himself flying false colWl coming before them in the guise of a grief that was not his. ° ' Rhys offered him an apple. "Did your stepfather come with you?" asked, as if he could possibly have had any interest in Hugh's whereabouts.
Llewelyn nodded - "Hugh came on behalf of the Corbet family, as a sture of respect to my mother's kin ..." He stopped, for Ednyved had teaned forward, was regarding him with exaggerated attention.
"Why do you look at me like that? Has my face of a sudden turned green?"
"I was trying to decide," Ednyved drawled, "whether or not you'd picked up a
French accent."
Llewelyn tensed, ~but then he looked more closely at the other boy, saw that
Ednyved's eyes were bright with friendly laughter.
"No French accent," he said, and grinned, "but I did spend some right uncomfortable days this spring, worrying that I'd picked up the French pox!"
Ednyved's mouth twitched. "Llewelyn!" With a frown toward his cousin. "If you please, no bawdy talknot before the lad here!" Ducking just in time as an apple whizzed past his head.
Seconds later, Rhys followed up his aerial assault with a direct frontal attack, and Ednyved, caught off balance, was knocked flat. Rhys's anger was more assumed than not, and their scuffling soon took on an almost ritualistic quality, for this was an old game, rarely played out in earnest, and likely to continue until one or the other of the combatants lost interest. In this case the mock battle lasted until they noticed that Llewelyn had appropriated the rest of the apples and stretched himself out comfortably on the turf to watch, for all the world like a front-row spectator at a bearbaiting.
"Go to it, lads," he said airily, and by common consent, they both pounced on him at once. For a few hectic moments all three boys were tumbling about on the riverbank, until at last they lay panting in a tangled heap, lacking breath for anything but laughter.
After that, there seemed to be too much to say and not enough time m which to say it, and they plunged into the past as if fearing it might somehow be forgotten if it was not shared immediately, interrupting each other freely, trading insults and memories, laughing for laughter's sake alone.
Rhys had gone to the river to drink. Returning, he threw himself "wl" 'n ^e
8rass/ anc* broke into Ednyved's monologue to demand, When must you go back to
England, Llewelyn?"

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"I'm not going back," Llewelyn said, at once capturing their undivided attention.
"You both know the history of my House, know how my uncles Davydd and Rhodri cheated my father and my other uncles of their rightful share of my grandfather's inheritance. They carved Gwynedd up between them as if it were a meat pie, forced my father, Owain Fawr's firstborn, into exile, brought about his death whilst I was shll in my cradle. His blood is on their hands and they've yet to answer for it I think it time they did."
"You mean to avenge your father's death?" Rhys's green eyes were luminous, aglitter with sudden excitement, but Ednyved seemed far more dubious.
"All know the English are born half mad," he said slowly, "but I wonder if the madness might not be in the water they drink or the air they breathe. How else explain that four short years amongst them could have so scattered your wits?"
Llewelyn was amused. "Your faith in me is truly wondrous to behold, Ednyved.
Think you that I'm such a fool as to challenge my uncles on my own, with only
God on my side? I had a long talk this morn with my Uncle Gruffydd, and he has sworn to give me his full backing, men who know war well and the money to pay them; he even offered the services of no less a soldier than Gwyn ab Ednywain.
It is my intent, too, to join forces with my Uncle Cynan's two grown sons.
They were denied their inheritance just as I was, giving us common cause against Davydd and Rhodri."
"When you do put it that way, it does not sound quite so crackbrained,"
Ednyved conceded. "But how in the name of the Lord Jesus did you ever get your lady mother and stepfather to give their consent?"
Llewelyn hesitated. "Well, to be honest, I have not told them yet," he admitted, and flushed when they both laughed.
"Can you truly blame me?" he protested. "We'll be bound to have a godawful row. I know not with whom my mother'll be more wroth, me or my Uncle Gruffydd, for aiding and abetting me in this. As for Hugh, he's like to have an apoplectic fit. You see, he'd arranged for me to enter the household of a
Norman Earl."
Llewelyn shook his head in mock regret. "Poor Hugh, how he has struggled to make of me a proper Norman. I once overheard his brother grumbling about turning a sow's ear into a silk purse, and I daresay Hugh has had moments when he's in heartfelt agreement!"
This last was said without rancor. Llewelyn never doubted tha Hugh's fondness for him was genuine, but he'd come to understand that affection and bias could take root in the same soil. In this he had tn

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fa ere of Rhys and Ednyved, and they looked so offended that he advanwg<- -j
.11 i i j F
felt compelled to come to Hugh s defense.
"Yet he is a good man for all that. My mother has been quite content th him, and I"he grinned suddenly"I even did come to forgive vTm for his greatest sin, that of not being born Welsh!"
But here they had no common meeting ground; neither Rhys nor Fdnvved had
English friends, English kin. Both looked blank, and then Rhys dismissed what he did not understand, saying, "You'll not let them talk you out of it?"
"No." Llewelyn sat up, his eyes searching their faces with sudden ober intent.
"I shall have men to counsel me, men well lessoned in the ways of war. But no matter how much help I get from my Uncle Gruffydd or my cousins, I shall have to stand or fall on my own efforts. If I cannot convince people that my claim be just, if I cannot win their allegiance . . . nor can I expect my blood to count for aught should I fall into Davydd's hands. And the risks will be no less for those who follow me." He paused. "My Uncle Gruffydd has agreed to speak with your fathers, should you"
"You want us to help you overthrow Davydd and Rhodri, to fight with you?" Rhys could wait no longer, and burst out eagerly, "Jesu, Llewelyn, need you even ask?"
Llewelyn smiled. "What of you, Ednyved? Does Rhys speak for you, too?"
"I'd as soon speak for myself," Ednyved said, sounding quite serious for once.
"I want to be sure I fully understand. We'd be camping out in the mountains of
Gwynedd, harassing your uncles howsoever we could, living like outlaws, sleeping in the open, eating on the run, rebels with prices on our heads. Is that a fair summing up of what we could expect?"
"Very fair," Llewelyn agreed, and a slow grin began to spread over Ednyved's face.
"Who could possibly turn down an offer like that?"
"It is settled, then," Rhys said briskly, never having doubted what his cousin's answer would be. As he spoke, he was rolling up the sleeve of his tunic. Before Llewelyn and Ednyved realized what he meant to o, he unsheathed his dagger and, without the slightest hesitation, drew it swiftly across the bared skin of his forearm.
1 his is too important for mere words," he explained composedly, watching the flow of his own blood with indifferent eyes. "For this, we must swear in blood."
was a gesture as irresistible as it was melodramatic, at least to ew yn.
Ednyved looked rather less enthusiastic, and when Rhys

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passed him the bloodied dagger, he took it with such reluctance that Llewelyn burst out laughing.
"Since you share the same blood as Rhys, mayhap you could swear, too, in his,"
he gibed, and Ednyved grimaced, drew a few drops of blood.
"Here, my lord princeling," he grunted. "Your turn."
Llewelyn made a far more modest cut than Rhys had, saying, "If I'm to spill my blood, I'd as soon spill it in Gwynedd." Rising, he searched the clearing until he'd gathered a handful of rock moss. This he brought back to Rhys, and leaning over, he applied it to the other boy's arm.
"Hold this upon the cut till the bleeding ceases, or you might well end up as the first casualty of my war," he said, and laughed again, realizing that he was as happy at this moment as he'd ever been in his life.
HUGH Corbet was surprised to find the great hall all but deserted; as in
England, the hall was the heart of Welsh home life. But then he heard the voices, angry, accusing, and he understood. At the far end of the hall his wife and her elder brother Gruffydd were standing, and even Hugh, who knew no
Welsh other than a few endearments Marared had taught him in bed, could tell at once that they were quarreling, quarreling bitterly. Gruffydd's retainers and servants had wisely fled the battlefield; only Llewelyn, Adda, and Morgan ap Bleddyn, his wife's chaplain, were still in the hall.
As Hugh moved up the center aisle, Gruffydd turned on his heel and stalked out the door behind the dais, slamming it resoundingly behind him. Hugh was secretly amused that his wife should be giving her brother such grief. He had discovered early in his marriage that Welshwomen were more outspoken and less submissive than their Norman sisters, and while he'd learned to accept Marared on her own terms, it pleased him to see Gruffydd reaping what he had sown. For certes, a society in which women were not taught their proper place was bound to lack harmony, a natural sense of order.
But he was taken aback by what happened next. Marared swung around on her eldest son, put a question to him, and when he shook his head, she slapped him across the face. Hugh was astonished, for he'd never seen her raise her hand to Llewelyn before, not even on occasions when the boy richly deserved it. He hastened toward them, wondering what sins would loom so large in her eyes.
Could Llewelyn have set his heart upon trading his gelding for an untamed stallion? No, Margaret was a doting mother, not a foolish one;