Here Be Dragons - 1 (75 page)

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my father wants to drive him back into Scotlandalso to punish the rebels."
How much more should she tell him? She'd vowed that she'd not keep anything from her children again, but how much truth could a seven-year-old handle? Did
Davydd need to know that John's army was wreaking bloody vengeance upon the
North? Did he need to know that rebel manors were being torched, livestock slain, that terrified towns were offering John lavish sums to be spared the fate of Berwick upon Tweed, burned to the ground, its citizens slaughtered?
"Is it a bad war, Mama?"
"To me, all wars are bad, Davydd, but that is a woman's view. In war, soldiers sometimes do great evil, and the innocent suffer. It need not always be that way, though. Your father controlled his men at Shrewsbury. But my father would notor could notcontrol his men at Berwick, and many people died."
"Will the King win his war with the barons?"
"I'm not sure, Davydd. Your father says the odds are in his favor, since his army is made up of mercenaries, routiers. They're seasoned soldiers, you see, men who earn their living by their swords. Llewelyn thinks my father is likely to prevail, unless the French give substantial aid to the rebels. They have offered the crown to Louis, the French King's son, but Philip is loath to incur the Pope's wrath again. Whilst he did allow Louis to send seven thousand
French troops to London, he is discouraging Louis from coming over himself, and that is what the rebels truly need, a Prince they can rally around."
Davydd slanted her a sidelong glance. "Mama ... do you want the King to win?"
It had not escaped Joanna that Davydd invariably referred to John as "the
King," never as "your father." She knew the little boy was confused by her relationship to John, but she did not want to lie to him, and she said slowly, "You know that John has committed grievous sins. But he is still my father, Davydd, and so I have to say yes, I do hope he will prevail over the rebels."
"But. . . but what if he wins, and then he makes war on Papa?"
He'd gone unerringly to the heart of Joanna's dilemma. But as she looked into his upturned face, she suddenly realized what he was really asking, realized how threatened he felt by her kinship to the Englist1 King. "I would hope it never comes to that, Davydd. But if it did, would want your father to win. You and Elen and Llewelyn are my 'anl ily, and Wales my home."
That was what Davydd needed to hear, and he reached up, slid free hand into hers. "Papa would win," he said confidently. "He too*

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those castles from the Normans. He's a good battle commander, js j, not, Mama?"
"The best, love. This was the first time, Davydd, that all the Welsh princes banded together, offered a united front to the Normans. And jt vvas your father's doing, as is this conference on the banks of the River Dyfi. All of the Welsh Princes have gathered in answer to Llewelyn's summons, and that, too, is a first. Your father is seeking to make a lasting peace in the south between Maelgwn, Rhys Gryg, and their nephews, and to bring it about, he has proposed an equitable partition of Deheubarth amongst them."
"What of all they won from the Normans? Is Papa not going to keep any of that land?"
"No, Davydd, he made no claims for himself. Do you know why? Because your father is a very clever man. He's gaining something from this peace that is of far greater value than land or castles, something of historic significance.
That is why he sent for us, so that we could witness what is to happen."
Davydd's eyes had widened. "What, Mama?"
Joanna smiled. "You'll find out," she said, "on the morrow!"
A MAN standing on the bank of the River Dyfi could look north into Gwynedd, south into Ceredigion, and Llewelyn had selected the river estuary as an appropriate site for his peace conference. It had taken all of his diplomatic and political skills and nearly a week of wrangling among the participants, but in the end Llewelyn had prevailed, and on a mild, sunlit morning in
January, a formal partition of Deheubarth was proclaimed.
Joanna had chosen an inconspicuous spot near Llewelyn's tent, one that nonetheless afforded an unobstructed view of the ceremonies taking place upon the white sands of Aberdyfi. As the agreed-upon division of the various cantrefs and commotes was read aloud to the assembled lords, Davydd lost interest, began to fidget with his sling. Joanna had been unable to convince him that he did not need it; he'd even managed to fasten his mantle so that the sling was still visible.
'If you do not stop squirming," she murmured, "you are going to "to the surprise."
"Well, when will it happen, Mama?"
"NT
'Now," Joanna said. An expectant silence had fallen; men were lng to get closer to their Princes. As all watched, Maelgwn crossed fe | Sand, knelt before Llewelyn, and swore an oath of homage and y to the Prince of Gwynedd. Rhys Gryg, who'd been freed from an

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English prison some months earlier; Llewelyn's cousin Hywel; his cousin Madog, Prince of upper Powys; Maelgwn's rebellious nephews Rhys leunac and Owainone by one they followed Maelgwn, acknowledged Llewelyn as their liege lord.
Gwenwynwyn was the last to approach Llewelyn. High color had mottled his cheekbones, and his eyes were slits of resentful rage, but he too, knelt and did homage to the man who'd been his lifelong rival Llewelyn half turned, and for a moment his gaze met Joanna's, a moment in which they exchanged a very private message.
"Do you know what this means, Davydd? The other Welsh Princes have just acknowledged Gwynedd's suzerainty, have just acknowledged Llewelyn as their liege lord . . . their Prince. He's too shrewd to lay formal claim to the title, knowing that would but alarm the English and stir up the jealousies of his allies. But from this day forth, your father is, in effect, Prince of
Wales."
Davydd did not fully comprehend the significance of what he'd just witnessed, but he responded to the echoes of pride and jubilation in his mother's voice.
"I'm glad Papa wanted me here, glad he's to be Prince of all the Welsh. Mama .
. . will I be Prince of Wales, too, one day?"
Joanna did not answer at once, and as he glanced up at her, he saw that she was no longer watching Llewelyn. She was staring at the tall youth standing by
Llewelyn's side, staring at his brother Gruffydd.
"Yes, Davydd," she said softly. "If I have any say about it, you will, indeed, be Prince of Wales."
GWENWYNWYN soon recanted, swayed by his jealousy of Llewelyn and the beguilements of the English King. A thirteenth-century Welsh chronicle set forth the denouement of this embittered rivalry:
In that year Gwenwynwyn, lord of Powys, made peace with John, King of England, scorning the oath and pledge he had given. . . . And after Llewelyn ab lorwerth had learned that, he felt vexed; and he sent to him bishops and abbots and other men of great authority. . . . And when that had availed him naught, he gathered a host and called the Princes of Wales together to him, and made for Powys to war against Gwenwynwyn, and he drove him to flight into the county of Chester and gained possession of all his territory for himself.

4Q
CORFE CASTLE, ENGLAND
June 1216
Bv
JjY spring, John's war seemed all but won. In three months he had brutally and effectively suppressed rebellion in the North and East of England. He was receiving formidable support from his brother Will, who'd led a punitive expedition into East Anglia, and the two most powerful lords in the realm, the
Earls of Chester and Pembroke, were holding fast for the crown. The rebels still controlled London, but they were losing heart. By April, a number of them were seeking to make peace with John; even Eustace de Vesci was asking for terms.
It was not the prospect of fighting for John's kingdom that had discouraged
Louis Capet from joining the rebels; it was his father. While Louis was quite willing to risk excommunication for the English crown, Philip was not. It took
Louis until Easter to coax a grudging consent from the French King, but on
April 24, Philip summoned the papal legate Guala to a council at Melun. There the French monarch and his son contended that John was no rightful King, having been charged with treason by his brother Richard and having been condemned by a french court for the murder of his nephew Arthur. Guala was not impressed, and warned them that John was the Pope's vassal and England Part of the patrimony of the Holy Roman Church. But Louis was deaf to Y but the seductive sirens of kingship, and he declared his intent to a"n the crown that was his by right, his wife being niece to John and Goddaughter to Henry.
John remained sanguine in the face of the impending French inva-
I "'for he, more than any other English King, had appreciated an is-
i kmgdom's need for naval supremacy and had spared no expense in
1 dlng England's first fleet. He felt confident that his ships would be

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able to keep Louis bottled up within Calais harbor. There was one aspect of successful kingship, however, that John had always utterly lacked-^ luck.
Fortune now delivered a stunning blow. On the night of May lg sudden storm raked the Kentish coast, and John's galleys were scattered, driven onto the rocks or out to sea.
When coast watchers at Thanet reported sails on the horizon two days later, John allowed himself the indulgence of optimism, allowed himself to hope that some of his fleet had ridden out the squall. But the ships that sailed into
Pegwell Bay flew the golden fleur de lys of France
Pembroke and Chester advised against an immediate confrontationtoo many of
John's mercenaries were French, and John owed them too much in back pay to trust them in an encounter with their liege lord's son. John agreed, unwilling to risk all upon a single battle, one that might be decided by treachery, and he withdrew toward the west.
He'd hoped that the invasion of a foreign Prince would rally his subjects to his side. The opposite happened. Louis' presence upon English soil acted as a catalyst for the rebel cause. Men flocked to his banners, even men who'd so far been loyal. John's support began to bleed away. To stave off a lethal hemorrhage, the papal legate Guala invoked the moral authority of the Church on John's behalf, and on Whitsunday he publicly excommunicated Louis and his followers, placed London under Interdict. But that did not deter Londoners from giving Louis a joyous welcome just four days later.
Stunned by the acclaim and acceptance the French Prince was encountering, John abandoned Winchester as Louis moved into Hampshire. On June 14, Louis took the ancient city of Winchester, set about besieging the royal castle. John retreated southward, reaching the security of Corfe Castle on June 23. That was the day he learned of the defections. The Earl of Arundel, the Count of
Aumale, and John's own cousin, William de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, had gone to
Winchester, where they had disavowed allegiance to John and acknowledged Louis as their King.
CORFE Castle dominated the Dorsetshire peninsula known as Purbec Isle. Its history was a grim one, for it was often used as a royal prisonHere the ill-starred prophet Peter of Wakefield had passed the las months of his life.
Here twenty-two knights taken captive after Jonn victory at Mirebeau had overpowered their gaolers, barricaded trie selves within the keep, and starved to death rather than surren Here, too, John held four of Maude de Braose's grandsons, children the son who'd died with her in a Windsor dungeon. But
Corfe was a ^ favorite residence of the Angevin Kings. John had constructed

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living quarters in the inner bailey, just east of the great keep, where
Isabelle and their children awaited his coming
ISABELLE stirred, reached sleepily toward John's side of the bed "John7 Why are y°u not abed7"
John turned from the open window, from the summer dark "It has begun to Tain,"
he said "Go back to sleep "
Instead she sat up, wrapped herself in the sheet "I've missed you so We've never been apart like this, not in all the years of our marriage Pour me some wine, love, and talk to me I just do not understand why this is happening, John It makes no sense Louis has no right to the English crown His claim is a a bad joke What is he, after all7 The husband of a daughter of one of your sisters'"
John paused in the act of pouring her wine, slammed the cup down on the table
"Did I tell you what lame arguments they offered Guala at Melun7 Whilst it's true Richard did charge me with treason, that was five full years ere he died1
All of Christendom knows that we reconciled, that Richard named me as his heir
As for that out-and-out he about Arthur, no French court ever sat in judgment upon me Since when am I accountable to the French King7"
"You're not, love," Isabelle said hastily "Of course you're not "
"Do you know what the Pope said when he was informed of Philip's claim7 He said that Arthur was a traitor who'd invited whatever end he might have met
And he did, in truth Whatever regrets I might have, Arthur is not amongst them
"
That was, she knew, as close as he'd ever come to a confession, to an admission that Arthur had died at his command But she did not care, Arthur's fate had never preyed upon her peace "John is it true that Rochester Castle has been lost7"
He nodded "It held out against me for nigh on two months, but yielded to Louis without offering any resistance at all Which makes me wonder what will happen when Louis lays siege to Windsor Castle, to Dover Will they try to hold out7
Or will their castellans betray me, too7"
He swung about, back toward the bed "Have I been such a bad *">§< Isabelle7"
"John, no1" Wh why," he asked, very low, "have my subjects forsaken me7
^,,are ^ey so wiling to support a foreign Prince7" th n' that's not so
Many of your subjects are still loyal For certes, °vvnspeople are What king ever did as much to promote trade7 Or
5Ur ec" as many borough charters7 Let craven lords like Arundel and ev barter their honor to Louis The towns will still hold fast for you "

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"As London did?" he asked bitterly, and she had no answer for him, could only entreat him to come back to bed. After a time, he did But he did not sleep.
JOHN was seated before a table cluttered with parchment sheets, ink maps, books. He was surrounded by peopleseveral scribes, a mudspattered courier, Peter des Roches, Robert de Vieuxpontall competing for his attention. He scrawled a hasty signature for one of the scribes, reached for the courier's message as he said to de Vieuxpont, "I want you to go north again, Rob, am counting upon you to hold Cumbria and Westmorland for me."
Seeing him so preoccupied, the boys hesitated, but Isabelle prodded them forward into the chamber. "John, can you spare some moments for your sons?"
John had not seen his children for months. As he pushed back his chair, beckoned them to approach, he could not help noticing their shyness, their lack of ease. His baby daughters did not know him at all. Even to his sons, he was a stranger. Henry was eight, Richard seven, but he'd never been able to find much time for them, to make them part of his life as he had with the children now grown, born out of wedlock and before his kingship.
Isabelle took her youngest from the nurse, held the baby out toward John. Nell was entering her seventh month, and John had seen her for the first time yesterday, upon his arrival at Corfe. All of Isabelle's three daughters had inherited some of their mother's beauty; Nell had dark blue eyes and hair like cornsilk. John smiled at the child, but she ducked her head, hid her face against Isabelle's shoulder.
John was still holding the courier's letter. Breaking the seal, he rapidly scanned the contents, and at Peter des Roches's questioning look, he said, "It's from the Earl of Chester. Gwenwynwyn has died."
Henry edged closer. "Who's that, Papa?"
"A Welsh Prince, Henry, an ally of mine. But he's been living in exile in
Cheshire since the spring, when Llewelynyour sister Joanna s husbanddrove him out of Powys."
"But. . . but I thought Joanna was living in France, Papa."
"Not France, Aquitaine. I expect you're too young to remembe your older sister. I lost two Joannas, lad, one to the de Lusignans, tn other to
Llewelyn."
A servant had followed Isabelle into the chamber. "My liege/ y° son, Lord
Richard of Chilham, has just ridden in. Will you see him-
"At once." John glanced toward de Vieuxpont and des Rochessent Savaric de
Mauleon to Winchester with an offer for Louis, tna