Falls the Shadow (35 page)

Llewelyn could have pointed out that in less than two months, he would be eighteen. He could have argued that he’d enjoyed Davydd’s trust, that he was Davydd’s rightful heir. He said, “As ever, you are slow to grasp the obvious, Owain. We cannot fight the English and fight each other, too. We bear for each other as much brotherly love as Cain bore Abel. But Henry is the enemy. If you cannot see that, you are indeed a fool.”

Ednyved saw the expression on Owain’s face change, first incredulous and then outraged, and he said swiftly, “If you force our people to choose between you and Llewelyn, you’ll sorely regret it. Some might well choose you. But most will choose your brother. Whilst you lived on the King’s bounty at Shotwick, Llewelyn was fighting to expel the English intruders. As young as he is, he has gained a name for himself. Men know he had Davydd’s support, and they know he has mine. Should it come to war between you, he will prevail. But the Wales he’d win would be a prize not worth having, bloodied and impoverished, easy prey for the English King.”

He moved down the steps of the High Altar. “Llewelyn loves Gwynedd enough to share it. What of you, Owain? Do you?”

“Yes, damn you, yes!” Owain’s cry was spontaneous, heartfelt; Ednyved’s taunt about his Shotwick manor had drawn blood. He could feel other eyes upon him; the shadows were astir with witnesses, Ednyved’s sons, the Abbot of Aberconwy, influential men all, willing him to agree, to accept his accursed little brother as an ally, an equal. He yearned to scorn Ednyved’s warning; he could not. There was too much truth in what the old man said.

“So be it,” he said bitterly. “First we must fight the English. Then…then we shall see.” Turning on his heel, he stalked up the aisle, vanishing into the darkness of the nave.

One by one, the others departed, too, leaving at last only Ednyved, Llewelyn, and Elen standing in silence before the twin tombs of their dead. Reaching over, Elen squeezed Llewelyn’s arm. “Henry is going to get a right sharp surprise,” she said. “As for Owain, I do hope Henry gave him title to that Shotwick manor; he’ll be needing it again by and by.”

Somehow she always knew just what to say, what he most needed to hear. Llewelyn wished he knew how to comfort her in kind. “I think my greatest fear has been of letting Grandpapa down. Now…now I pray to God that I do not.”

“I am so glad you made peace with Davydd, lad. I think it eased his mind a little, knowing you shared his dreams for Wales, knowing those dreams need not die with him…” Elen’s voice wavered. She dared not talk further of her brother. She would mourn him later when she was alone, would mourn him all her life.

“I know Davydd asked you both to look after Isabella,” she said huskily. “He asked the same of me. I think she might want to return to England. After the funeral, she made mention of Godstow, a Benedictine nunnery near Oxford. She’s still so distraught that I doubt if she knows her own mind yet. Without Davydd, she’s like a lamb without a shepherd—” She broke off, no longer trusting herself. Turning as abruptly as Owain had done, she, too, retreated into the shadows.

Llewelyn hesitated, casting a sorrowful look back at Davydd’s tomb. Slowly he made the sign of the cross, as much a gesture of respect as of piety, a final farewell, and then followed Elen’s receding footsteps up the nave.

Ednyved walked stiffly down the remaining steps, paused before the other tomb. Slowly, very slowly, he knelt as if to pray, instead rested his cheek against the gilded, enameled lions of Llewelyn Fawr.

“They love each other not, those grandsons of yours. But I got them to see what was at stake. Llelo did not take much persuasion, a good lad…Owain, he needed more convincing. I yoked them into a harness sure to pinch, Llewelyn, but I gained time for us…”

He raised his head, heard only the rasping sound of his own breathing. “My last service for Wales,” he whispered, “my last service for you. This is one task I cannot see through to the end.” Above his head, the candles blurred, shivered and shimmered in a halo of tears. “I know what lies ahead, but I am ailing, and so very tired. It will have to be up to the lad, Llewelyn. God help us, all up to him…”

Lewelyn’s unhappiest birthday had been his twelfth, coming as it had so soon after his grandfather’s death. But his nineteenth birthday was no less dismal, for he marked it on the road to Woodstock, where he and Owain were to make a total and humiliating surrender to the English King.

The war’s outcome was inevitable. Disheartened by Davydd’s untimely death, weakened by famine, abandoned by their countrymen, the Welsh of Gwynedd had little chance of thwarting the English Crown; the surprise was that Llewelyn and Owain had been able to hold out for fourteen months. The knowledge that they had put up a valiant defense gave Owain a small measure of solace. Llewelyn was denied even that meagre comfort. He had failed his grandfather. In his moment of truth, he had been found wanting. And it consoled him not at all that his failure was also Owain’s; Owain, he could forgive.

His despair was all the greater for being a burden he must bear alone. After Davydd’s death, he had reconciled with his uncle Einion, yet neither Einion nor Tegwared rode by his side as he approached Henry’s Oxfordshire manor. He had wanted no witnesses to what was to come. He missed them, though, as he splashed into the shallows of the River Glyme, for fears echoed too loudly in solitude. Above all, he missed Ednyved’s ice-blooded sangfroid, his shrewd counsel. But Ednyved’s blunt tongue was stilled. He had died in the heat of high summer, on St Margaret’s Eve, as lightning split the sky asunder and hailstones shredded the leaves from trees, sent birds plummeting to the ground and men hastening for rosary beads, a gale of such savagery that people knew it must be an omen of ill fortune, a harbinger of doom. And as he rode through the Woodstock gateway, it seemed to Llewelyn that Gwynedd’s fortunes had plummeted no less fatally than those storm-slaughtered birds.

At first sight, the royal manor of Woodstock resembled a town, for around Henry’s lodgings were clustered a kitchen, buttery, larder, almonry, stables, a smithy, other buildings Llewelyn could not identify. They were as rich as Croesus, the English kings; what Welsh prince could hope to equal such vast revenues? Llewelyn felt a sudden chill. Nudging his mount closer to Owain’s, he murmured, “Shall we lay a wager upon where we’ll be come Ascension Day? Back in Gwynedd—or at the Tower?”

There was no malice in his jest; he’d always been one for whistling past graveyards. But Owain gave him a baleful stare, for he, too, put little credence in the English King’s safe-conduct. “I doubt you’ll find it so amusing once you’re mewed up in an English castle keep!”

Had it been anyone else, Llewelyn might have apologized; Owain was hardly the ideal audience for jokes about the Tower. But with Owain, the most he could manage was strained civility, and that was more than Owain even attempted. “Do you know what I most admire about you, Owain? Your unfailing good humor,” he said flippantly, thus earning himself another irate glare.

The bailey was overflowing with curious spectators, and Llewelyn remembered having read that Romans had turned out in large numbers to watch as the Christians sought to convert the lions. In the next moment, though, all else was forgotten. “Jesú, Owain! It’s Mama!”

Senena was waiting by the stairs of the hall porch, flanked by two young boys. With a shock, Llewelyn realized that these strangers were his brothers. Owain was already dismounting, embracing first his mother and then the boys. It was not so easy for Llewelyn. Owain had maintained contact with Davydd and Rhodri during his confinement at the Tower; Llewelyn had not seen the boys since the autumn of 1241. Rhodri hung back, still in his brother’s shadow. Davydd showed no such shyness. He was a handsome youngster with bright chestnut hair and Gruffyd’s eyes; they were as green as a Welsh mountain cat’s, and as remote, too opaque, too wary for the eyes of an eight-year-old. The eyes of a hostage.

The change in Senena was no less unnerving; Llewelyn was stunned to see how much she’d aged. Wimples had never been a Welsh fashion, and the brown braids that hung down from her veil were threaded through with grey. Her face was free of cosmetics, a mirror to the bleakest, more barren of terrains, the rock-strewn, arid wasteland of widowhood. The grey eyes were dry, tearless, as frozen as the mouth denied the leavening of laughter. Not even now could she summon up a smile; that was a forgotten skill, withered with disuse.

“You need feel no shame,” she said in a low, fierce voice. “You did your best against a far stronger foe.” For the most fleeting of moments, those grey-ice eyes cut toward Llewelyn’s face, her first acknowledgment of her second son’s presence. “You did not shame yourselves,” she repeated tautly. “You did not shame your father.”

Owain caught her elbow, drew her aside. “Christ Jesus, Mama, why did you bring the lads?”

For once, Llewelyn found himself in full accord with his brother; why make the boys unwilling witnesses to a Welsh defeat? “Could you not have spared them this, Mama?” he asked, and saw that he’d been wrong; she could still smile—a twisted grimace of mirthless mockery.

“Do you think it was my doing? Nay, they were summoned at the royal command. Henry,” she said, drawling out the King’s Christian name with a truly terrible contempt, “thought it would be a kindness, a magnanimous gesture from the victor to the vanquished.”

Llewelyn could more easily comprehend an enemy’s vengeful rancor than such misguided benevolence. “Can you keep the lads here, Mama?” he asked quietly, and when she nodded, he turned, and without waiting for Owain, mounted the stairs into the hall.

Llewelyn paused in the doorway. There was an unnatural stillness about the scene before him, an unsettling air of unreality. He welcomed it, though, for how else could he endure what was to come? Mere play-acting, he thought. Henry the complacent conqueror, regally clad in red velvet. He and Owain the penitent Welsh Princes. Rehearsed speeches, words that floated on the air like feathers, with no more weight or substance. And then he saw Elen.

She was standing near the dais, her dark, prideful gaze shining like a beacon across the crowded hall, a gaze that held such utter and unqualified love that his throat tightened. He would have sworn he’d wanted no witnesses. But Elen had known him better than he knew himself, had known he would need her here, Elen who shared his grandfather’s dream, who did not blame him for having betrayed it. Their eyes held, and it was to Elen that he looked rather than to Henry as he moved toward the dais, knelt before the English King.

The great hall was festively adorned with spring blossoms and brightly woven wall hangings, lit by fully a score of flaming torches. Llewelyn was awed by the luxury of Woodstock; many of the chambers were wainscoted in fine oak, and all of the windows were set with expensive glazed glass panes. The sight of such splendor only intensified his despair. How could he hope to compete with Henry when Henry had so much wealth, so much power? How in Christ’s mercy had his grandfather managed to outfight or outwit two English Kings?

And yet it had not lasted. A lifetime’s work now lay in ruins. All his grandfather had won for Wales had been lost this afternoon. He and Owain had been forced to yield the four cantrefs of the Perfeddwlad to the English Crown, all of Gwynedd east of River Conwy. They’d had to agree to provide Henry with one thousand foot-soldiers and twenty-four knights should the King call upon them for military aid. Never had Gwynedd been so tightly yoked to the English Crown.

Across the hall, he could see Owain, in earnest conversation with their mother; he knew without being told that to join them would be an intrusion. Neither Davydd nor Rhodri was in sight. Nor was Elen. Llewelyn’s sense of isolation had rarely been so overwhelming. Not that he was being ignored. From the moment he’d entered the hall, he’d found himself the focal point of all eyes. The stares were uncomfortably obvious, obtrusive, the sort of stare men turned upon lepers and lamed beggars. As if, Llewelyn concluded bitterly, being Welsh was a deformity, too. He had rarely been so ill at ease, but pride held him in the hall, just as pride kept him away from Senena and Owain.

Henry’s laughter floated across the hall, exultant, joyful laughter that salted Llewelyn’s wounds anew. Henry was lavishing a conspicuous amount of attention upon several young men and a girl in her mid-teens, all of them flaxen-haired, uncommonly fair to look upon. Many of Henry’s courtiers were casting these new favorites disgruntled glances, but Llewelyn was too distracted to fathom English undercurrents or eddies. He wanted only for this wretched night to end.

He didn’t hear the woman’s approach. It was her perfume he noticed first, an intriguingly exotic fragrance, subtle yet haunting. He turned, wondering how he might obtain some of this elusive, elegant scent for Melangell, and found himself gazing into beguiling blue eyes.

“Do you remember me?” she asked. Her tone was friendly, even faintly flirtatious, and he readily returned her smile.

“Is a man likely to forget the King’s sister, the Countess of Leicester? Although I suspect that you would be remembered, Madame, were you but a crofter’s daughter.”

Nell laughed. “Llewelyn passed on more than those dark eyes, I see. He could be very gallant when he chose, to Joanna’s dismay, for the women bedazzled by that honeyed tongue were legion.”

Llewelyn laughed, too, for the first time since his arrival at Woodstock. He wanted Nell to stay, for not only was she fair, she was his grandfather’s sister by marriage, and he hastily sought a topic of conversation. “Those people clustered about the King, the ones he has been favoring all evening, who are they?”

Nell’s smile faded. “Guy, William, Aymer, and Alice de Lusignan—Henry’s half-brothers and sister.” She saw Llewelyn’s brow quirk at “
Henry’s
half-brothers,” and although he did not say anything, a slight flush rose in her cheeks. “They have come to live at Henry’s court, now that their father is joining the French King’s crusade.” She hesitated almost imperceptibly before saying, “Their mother—and mine—died last year. I expect you heard?”

Isabelle had died that past June at Fontevrault Abbey, after having been accused of attempting to poison the French King. Whether there was truth to the accusation, Nell did not know, did not want to know. The only certainty was that the accusation had frightened Isabelle enough to send her fleeing to Fontevrault. Nell’s mouth tightened, and she looked challengingly now at Llewelyn, waiting tensely for his response.

He had, in fact, heard of Isabelle’s disgrace; so great was the scandal that it had penetrated even into the fastness of Eryri. His face remained impassive, though, and Nell relaxed, favored him with another smile.

“I sought you out at my husband’s behest. He withdrew to our own chambers some time ago, having no taste for court fêtes. He would very much like to meet you, though. Might I lure you away?” She saw him wavering, for he was admittedly curious about the Earl of Leicester, and clinched his acceptance by adding, “Elen is there.”

Henry had founded the borough of New Woodstock half a mile north of his manor, so that his courtiers might have adequate lodgings. But Simon and Nell were enjoying, with his blessings, the use of Everswell, a nearby manor built by Henry’s grandfather for his beloved courtesan, Rosamond Clifford. As he gazed about at the bubbling springs, the starlit gardens, Llewelyn decided that Simon must stand high, indeed, in Henry’s favor.

Simon’s chamber was filled with friends, almost as if he were holding court himself. Of the other people present, Llewelyn was most impressed with Robert Grosseteste, the aged Bishop of Lincoln, for that venerable churchman’s fame had spread as far as Wales, and with a tall, wind-burned man who looked as if he’d be more at home in tavern brawls than at the royal palace. When Simon began to introduce him, Will interrupted with a grin. “We’ve met before…at Aberconwy Abbey, where our paths crossed, if not our swords. Your battle tactics were first-rate, lad. I’d have told you that then, but the timing did not seem quite right!”

Even an hour ago, Llewelyn would have insisted that he could never find humor in the sacking of his grandfather’s burial place. But an hour ago, he had not yet encountered Will. His mouth twitched, he laughed in spite of himself, and thus entered into an unspoken truce with two of his English enemies.

Simon and Will wanted to dissect the campaign in great detail, and Llewelyn was more than willing to join in, having recognized the kinship that soldiers the world over share. Once they’d refought the battle to their mutual satisfaction, they permitted the women to redirect the conversation, and the talk then ranged farther afield, to the earthquake that had rocked London two months past, to the arrival at the English court of Henry’s de Lusignan kindred, and to the Pope’s offer to Henry’s brother Richard of the kingdom of Sicily.

Since the Pope’s avowed enemy, the Emperor Frederick, was firmly in control of Sicily with no intention of abdicating, the Pope’s offer was one that only Henry had taken seriously. Richard had responded with none of Henry’s enthusiasm, remarking caustically that the Pope might as well offer him the moon.

Amidst the ensuing laughter, Llewelyn marveled that Henry’s judgment could be so flawed. Would he truly have Richard entangle himself in a war he could not win, all for the glimmer of false gold? Nor was that Henry’s only blunder. Llewelyn had not been long in concluding that Henry’s blatant preference for his de Lusignan siblings was stirring up resentment. It was not surprising; the court was a natural breeding ground for envy. Henry should have anticipated a backlash. That he hadn’t was significant to Llewelyn, offered him his first flicker of hope since his arrival at Woodstock.

All the talk was now of the French King’s upcoming pilgrimage to the Holy Land, for crusading fever was running high. Virtually every man present was vowing to go; even Nell announced that she, too, would take the cross, accompany Simon to Palestine. Llewelyn listened, somewhat bemused. As much as he regretted the fall of Jerusalem to the Saracens, he could not share their enthusiasm for crusading; his enemies were in London, not Cairo or Damascus.

“Of course you Welsh need not roam so far afield to find infidels,” Simon observed, reading his mind with such unerring accuracy that Llewelyn caught his breath. But then he saw that Simon’s eyes were silvered with laughter, and he grinned. It came as something of a shock to realize that he was actually enjoying himself.