Here Be Dragons - 1 (89 page)

570
Joanna caught her breath. "Ah, child, why did you not confide jn me ere this?"
Elen shrugged. "I did once, Mama. I told you I did not want to marry John, and what did that avail me?" As always when she was distraught, she could not keep still, but moved restlessly back and forth heedlessly trampling flowers underfoot. "John and I never quarrel' Would you believe me if I told you that in nigh on four years I've never seen him well and truly wroth? He believes in control, you see. He does not argue, he analyzes. He even explains my own emotions to rne, pa. riently shows me not only how I erred, but why. So you need not fear, Mama. He hardly sounds like an abusive husband, does he?"
"No," Joanna said slowly. "Just an unloved one," and Elen turned her head away, surreptitiously brushed the back of her hand against her cheek.
"At first I was glad when I did not get with child; that may be sinful, but I
was. After a time, though, I could not help wondering why I did not become pregnant. And . . . and then I began to want a baby, my baby. For the first time in my life, I took an interest when other women talked of birthing and children and the marriage bed, of the ways a barren wife might conceive. So I
put mistletoe over our bed. I drink feverfew and anise, in wine. I pray to St
Margaret. And each month I count the days, dread that first spotting of blood
..."
"Darling, you must not give up hope. Isabelle was barren for six full years ere she finally conceived. But she then was able to give my father five healthy children, and four so far to Hugh de Lusignan. Nor is she the only"
"Mama, I know you mean well. But that is no comfort. Better I should face the truth, that my marriage is barren." Elen laughed suddenly, mirthlessly.
"Barren in every sense of the word!" Choking back a sob, she spun about, fled the garden.
Joanna reached out, caught the edge of the fountain for support. This was her fault, all her fault. When she'd wept upon being told she must wed a Welsh
Prince, Isabelle had sought to comfort her, assuring her she'd learn in time to be content with Llewelyn. Isabelle had been right; most women did adjust, did find a measure of contentment in a but the most wretched marriages. But not Elen. And she should have realized that, should have known the marriage was doomed. When n Elen ever learned to compromise? Did it even matter that she brougf much of her unhappiness upon herself? How could she blame Elen the nature God had given her? It was like blaming her for having bt°" eyes. But if anyone should have foreseen this, it was she. For who ^ better than she how stubborn Elen could be, how passionate and, her bravado, how easily hurt?

572
And what was she to do now for her daughter? What could she do? , eariing over the fountain, Joanna splashed water upon her face, and a memory surfaced. St
Winifred's WellGwenfrewi in Welshwas a holy shrine in North Wales, close by
Basingwerk Abbey. It was celebrated for its cures, and the ailing and infirm made painful pilgrimages to avail themselves of its restorative waters.
Joanna felt the faintest stirring of hope. There was something she could do.
She and Elen would make a pilgrimage to St Winifred's Well, implore the saint to heed their prayers, to give Elen a child.
8
CRICIETH, NORTH WALES
August 1228
\~/F all the diseases that ravaged the countries of Christendom, none was so feared as leprosy. The Church sought to ease the suffering of those afflicted by proclaiming it a sacred malady, an admittedly agonizing means of achieving salvation. But Scriptures said otherwise. According to Leviticus, the leper was unclean and defiled, to w shunned by his fellow men, and people were only too willing to obey that harsh dictum, to banish the leper from their midst, stifling the voice °f conscience with the comforting belief that the leper's fate was deserved, God's punishment for sins of the flesh, for lust and lechery and unholy pride.
In England, lepers fared better than in other countries; the English
We generally more tolerant, more sympathetic toward the leper's readful plight. An English leper was not taken to the cemetery and r°ed to stand in an open grave while a priest declared, "Be thou dead he World, but alive again unto God," as was often done in France.
, tne English leper was still subject to banishment, was escorted to the th 3S ^ ne were a dead man, where he knelt under a black cloth as c°ngregation chanted, "Libera me, Domine."
°r the leper, there would be no release but death. No longer could

572
he enter churches, markets, inns. He must wear his distinctive leper garb, a dark hooded cloak, and carry clappers or bell in order to warn others of his approach. He must shun the company of all but his fellow lepers, and when he died, he would be buried as he'd lived, alone.
What befell him once he'd been stigmatized depended upon his own resources and the loyalty of family and friends. If he was wealthy and well loved, he could sequester himself in his own home. Or he could seek to enter a leper hospital, a lazar house. Life in a lazar house was not easy; the leper was compelled to bequeath his possessions to the hospital, to forswear such worldly amusements as chess and dicing, to take an oath of chastity, poverty, and obedience. But few balked, for the alternative was to be cast out upon one's own, to survive by begging, to face the hostility of people who shrank from the disfigurement and the ulcerated sores, and, as the disease took its gruesome toll, eventually to starve.
There was deep mourning, therefore, at Llewelyn's court when lorwerth, one of
Ednyved's sons, was diagnosed as having the disease of Lazarus. For lorwerth, of course, there would be no hut by the roadside, with alms-dish nailed to a pole. He had a manor at Abermarlais, had a father wealthy enough to provide for his needs, influential enough to soften the strictures of his exile. He would not want for food or comfort or medical care. Ednyved could provide him with ointments, juniper oil, viper potions, even so exotic a remedy as the blood of a turtle from the faraway Cape Verde Islands. He could aid lorwerth in making pilgrimages to the shrine of St Davydd's and the holy well at
Harbledown, near Canterbury. He could even coerce lorwerth's reluctant wife into keeping faith with her marriage vows, for while the Church did not recognize leprosy as grounds for divorce, Welsh law did. But what Ednyved could not do was to command a miracle, and nothing less would save his son.
Knowing that, he could only grieve for his doomed child. And his friends could only grieve with him.
They could not even offer the meagre comfort of forced cheer, could not seek to console Ednyved with false optimism, fabricated tales of wondrous cures, for he would not speak of his son. Even with Gwenllian he refused to share his grief, for lorwerth was not hers, but was a son of Tangwystl, the mother who'd died giving him birth. And so the bleak Lenten season dragged on under the heavy burden of Ednyved s frozen silence, and when it was spring, fate dealt another blow, no less cruel.
It was Easter, and Davydd Benfras, son of Llewelyn's court bar , Llywarch, was entertaining the court at Aber. He was reciting a ^e' account of a long-ago battle, when Rhys suddenly stumbled to his te Rhys looked quizzical, surprised rather than alarmed, but then he ree

573
backward, his clutching hands seeking support and finding only the edge of the tablecloth. He dragged it down with him, sent platters and jishes and tureens of soup clattering to the floor. Llewelyn was the first to reach him, cradled his head as Rhys fought for breath. But he was dead by the time Llewelyn's physician could be summoned.
Catherine was so bereft that they feared for her very sanity. Nothing could comfort her, not her children or her Church or her friends. At Joanna's insistence, she stayed for several weeks at Llewelyn's court, but then she went back to the manor house she'd shared for so many years with Rhys. In the months that followed, she withdrew into the past, into her memories and her regrets, until even to those who loved her, she seemed no more than a pale wraith, a wan, frail shadow trapped in a time no longer hers.
Llewelyn and Ednyved were stunned by Rhys's sudden death, for they'd lost more than a cherished friend, companion of boyhood and manhood. Standing in the shadowed choir of Aberconwy Abbey before Rhys's coffin, the same thought was in each man's mind, that it could have been him.
That thought, too, had been Joanna's. Common sense told her that she was likely to outlive Llewelyn, but she'd never allowed herself to dwell upon that likelihood, upon that eighteen-year difference in their ages. She knew their life together was bound to change as he aged, but not yet. Merciful Lady Mary, not yet.
Llewelyn's hair had begun to silver. His sight was no longer as sharp as it had been, and he tired more easily, complained of slowing reflexes. But he could still put in a day's hard riding. His health was excellent. Like all the
Welsh, he'd taken good care of his teeth, and he still had a handsome smile, a young man's smile. Although he and Joanna no longer made love as frequently as in the early years of their marriage, Joanna had no complaints about their love life. She found it hard to believe that twenty-two years could have passed since the day of their wedding, and time seemed to be treating Llewelyn so kindly that it H'as surprisingly easy to pretend it was also standing still.
But then Rhys had died in seizure upon the floor of Aber's great hall, Rhys who was four and fifty, a year younger than Llewelyn. And a ew weeks later, word reached Aber that Reginald de Braose had died at jibergavenny Castle. Like Rhys, Reginald had been in apparent good ea"h/ and he, too, was younger than Llewelyn. Joanna began to look
P°n her husband with new eyes, eyes haunted and full of fear.
Her anxiety was all the greater because the news from England was good. After five years of peace, the Marches were once more in ^°il, and
Joanna passed this, her thirty-sixth summer, in growing

574
T
575
dread, for it was beginning to seem more and more likely that Llewelv would be riding again to war.
Stephen Langton had died early in July, and with his death an irre placeable voice for peace and conciliation was stilled, the last check upon Hubert de
Burgh's growing ascendancy, for Peter des Roches had departed England the preceding year to fulfill a crusading vow, Chester had been stymied, Will was dead, and Pembroke was in uneasy alliance with de Burgh. Flourishing a new title, Earl of Kent, de Burgh now turned his eyes and ambitions westwardtoward
Wales. In April Henry agreed to give him the castle and lordship of
Montgomery.
The local Welsh reacted with alarm, laying siege to the castle and pressing their attack with such vigor that Henry and de Burgh were compelled to lead a royal army to the rescue. So far Llewelyn had not taken up arms himself, but he was deeply mistrustful of de Burgh's motives, and Joanna feared he would eventually be drawn into the fray She was to meet Henry later in the month at
Shrewsbury in hopes of preserving their fragmenting peace, but she was not optimistic of success, for the interests of her husband and brother were at heart irreconcilable.
AUGUST found Llewelyn's court at his seaside castle of Cricieth. On Tuesday, the Assumption of the Blessed Mary, Joanna spent the afternoon dictating letters to Elen, Catherine, and her young sister Nell. A brief letter was also dispatched to Gwladys, who'd returned to South Wales to settle a dispute over her late husband's lands; Reginald's son Will was contesting her dower rights.
Joanna was just completing the last and most important of the lot, informing
Henry that she had received his safe-conduct and would be meeting him in a fortnight's time at Shrewsbury.
Branwen and Alison had long since departed Joanna's service, had been found husbands and were raising families of their own. Glyms/ Joanna's latest maid, had grown bored and wandered to the window, where she stood gazing out to sea.
"The sun has just broken throug Madame. After nigh on a week of rains, I'd all but forgotten what' looked" A loud blaring noise intruded over the sound of rolling su the raucous gulls. It blasted again and Glynis exclaimed, "Did you that, my lady? A hunting horn. Your lord is back from the hunt!
By the time Joanna reached the bottom of the stairs, Llewelyn ^ already dismounting. The bailey was thronged with laughing lathered horses, and barking dogs; even before Joanna saw the de ^ casses strapped to the sumpter horses, she knew their hunt ha rousing success.
as she ie was
Giving his reins to a groom, Llewelyn reached for Joanna as she caff16 within range, bending her backward in a playful embrace. He was hegrimed and sweaty, and when he kissed her, she tasted mead on his breath; they'd apparently begun celebrating on the way back to the casfje That meant, she knew, dinner would likely be a rowdy, boisterous affair. But she did not mind in the least, for this was the first time since ghys's death that she'd seen Llewelyn in such high spirits.
"What were you doing?" she chided, "chasing deer through a mud wallow?"
"Is that the thanks I get for putting venison on your table?" He gave her a sudden squeeze, laughing when she squealed. "Come, I'll show you the prize kill of the day, a fine ten-point buck brought down by Davydd. Unfortunately, two of the brachet hounds were hurt"
Llewelyn had stopped, was gazing across the bailey. Joanna turned, saw at once what had caught his eye. Several horsemen had just been ushered through the gateway. But it was the horse being led that was drawing such admiring glances. The destrier was always larger than the palfreys used for daily riding, but this particular stallion was one of the largest Joanna had ever seen, standing almost seventeen hands high. It was a magnificent animal: broad chest, lengthy flanks, a powerfully muscled body and small head, a sweeping

silvery tail and a coat as white as the foaming breakers crashing down upon the beach. Joanna smiled at her husband, said indulgently, "Go ahead, go take a closer look."
Llewelyn was not the only one to be captivated by the creamcolored stallion.
It had attracted a crowd of admirers, men who looked on enviously now as one of the riders handed over the reins to Gruf-
fydd.
"I bought him in Powys last month," Gruffydd said proudly, as Llewelyn came up beside him. "What do you think, Papa?"
"He's a beauty, in truth." Llewelyn circled around to get a better lo°k, taking care not to get too close. One reason the destrier was rarely ndden except to war was that its natural gait was a rather jarring trot. W the other reason was that it was notorious for its fiery nature, and "* °ther men, too, were giving the horse respectful room.
I had to pay nigh on forty pounds for him," Gruff ydd volunered, and several men whistled. "As soon as I saw him, though, I ^ w » had to have him. You know what he put me in mind of, Papa?
a White stallion you gave me for my twelfth birthday, remember?" a 'I
remember Th =.<.- " - "
.wn yuu gave me tor my twelfth birthday, remember?"
a ! remember. That was a well-bred palfrey, but I doubt it could hold
" to this one. I'd say he's cheap at twice the price." i^ -^"ydd smiled. "I'm glad you're so taken with him, Papa. You bought him for you."
GruffvZ , S3y he S cheaP at twice the price."
^htiriivi"glad you're s°taken with wm- pap- *»