Here Be Dragons - 1

by Sharon Kay Penman

  33 been so cocky; he'd known from the first that he was playing with loaded dice. Hugh was swallowing bile, spat into the floor rushes. Rob was right; there was no reasoning with the Welsh, they were all mad, beyond redemption or understanding. What were they to tell Chester? The opportunity of a lifetime lost to them, all because a headstrong boy wanted to play the rebel! "And what of your brother? Would you leave him without a qualm, knowing he has such need of you, knowing you go where he cannot follow" "Adda hears just fine! Do not speak of him as if he were not even here!" There was a strained silence. Adda had gone very pale, but he said, quite evenly, "I want Llewelyn to go, want him to claim what is his. So would I, had God not willed otherwise." Hugh felt a touch of shame; it was Llewelyn he'd wanted to wound, not the innocent Adda. Llewelyn was staring at him, accusing, defiant. Whatever chance he might have had of prevailing was utterly gone now. Llewelyn might, he knew, forgive a slight on his own behalf, but on Adda's, never. He'd not yield in this, knowing he had the full backing of his Welsh kinsmen. All their plans set at naught, their hopes of an alliance with Chester now gall and wormwood, ashes in his mouth. "Go to Gwynedd and be damned, then!" he said bitterly, and turned away. They watched in silence as Hugh strode from the hall. But when Marared rose to follow him, Llewelyn stepped in front of her. "Mama ..." "No, Llewelyn. Do not expect my blessings. Do not expect my forgiveness, either." He'd won. But he could take no pleasure in it, not now. Llewelyn sank down on the dais steps, passed some moments disconsolately sliding his dagger up and down its sheath. The excitement he'd experienced in sharing his plans with Ednyved and Rhys had gone suddenly sour, tarnished by his mother's tears. "Adda?" Marared let her hand linger on her younger son's shoulder. "Are you coming, lad?" "Yes, Mama." As Adda rose, Llewelyn looked up, said, "Hugh did not mean that, Adda. He was angry, just did not think ..." "People never do, do they?" Adda smiled thinly. "Yet we'd be apart, too, once you were sent off to serve as Chester's squire. Better you should follow your heart."

  34 Their eyes caught, pulled away. Marared was waiting. Adda reached for his crutch and angled it under his armpit. Watching his brother limp toward the door, Llewelyn felt a protective pang. What Adda had just said was true. It was also true that he was being left behind. "Morgan . . . Morgan, am I doing the right thing?" "If I said no, would you heed me?" Llewelyn considered, and then gave the priest a rueful smile. "No," he conceded. "Gwynedd is my birthright. But it's like to take years to claim it. Years I can ill afford to squander in Shropshire. I have to do this, Morgan. I have to." Morgan nodded slowly; he'd expected no less. He, more than anyone else, had nurtured in Llewelyn a love for his heritage, his homeland, had molded youthful clay into adult ambition. He was proud of what he had accomplished, proud of Llewelyn's resolve, his daring. But he could not help feeling fear, too, for Llewelyn was the son he'd never have. "I cannot say I approve, lad." And then, very softly, "But I do understand." 3 CHINON CASTLE, PROVINCE OF TOURAINE }um uSg "w V YHAT is your name, girl?" "Lucy ..." She added "my lord" for safety's sake; a fortnight at Chinon had not been long enough for her to absorb the intricacies of the castle hierarchy. She knew only that this man was a bailiff, a being as far above her as stars in the firmament, and she was trembling with dread that she'd somehow displeased, that she might be dismissed in disgrace. "Turn around," he directed, and as she complied in bewilderment, he gave a satisfied nod. "Yes, you'll do once you're cleaned up some;

  35 he's right particular about such niceties. Agnes, see that she has a bath first. I expect it is too much to hope that you would still be a virgin?" Lucy gasped so audibly that several men laughed, and the bailiff looked at her with the first flicker of genuine interest. "Well, well. That is a stroke of luck for you, girl. How many wenches get to lose their maidenheads in a royal bed?" He laughed, moved on to other matters, and Lucy was forgotten. She stood there, rooted, until Agnes stepped forward and slipped a supportive arm around her waist. "Shall we get you that bath?" she said, and giving Lucy no chance to balk, she guided the girl toward the door. "Do not look so stricken, lass. It'll not be as bad as you think; you might even enjoy it." "But . . . but he's so old and sickly!" Lucy shuddered. She'd seen the old King infrequently since his arrival at Chinon. There was in his face the haggard, grey gauntness of coming death; it would, she thought with horror, be like embracing a corpse. "Old?" Agnes echoed and then laughed. "You need not fear, Lucy, you're not for poor King Henry. God pity him, he's beyond feeling the itch that only a woman can scratch. No, his son rode in within the hour, and it is a rare night when that one does not want a wench to warm his bed." "Lord John?" "Well, for certes not Richard!" Agnes giggled, but thought better of pursuing that particular brand of high-risk humor; instead, she took it upon herself to allay Lucy's fears. "He's handsome, is Lord John. Not as tall as Richard, of stocky build like his father, although dark as a Barbary pirate. And young, one and twenty against his sire's six and fifty, a far better age for bedding!" But Lucy did not seem to appreciate her good fortune; she looked dazed. Agnes thought she knew why, and glanced about to make sure no others were within earshot. "You must not believe all you hear, child. It is true John does have men about him who'd make even Hell the fouler for their presence. He might not rein them in as he ought, but he does not seem to be one for sharing their nastier sport. In the five years I've been at Chinon, I've never heard it said that he takes pleasure in a woman's pain, and whilst I cannot speak firsthand, mind you, I've been told he has no quirks a woman would not enjoy, too. And he's ever been generous in the past, will be sure to give you something after." She hesitated. "But in all honesty, his temper's like to be on the raw. God knows, he has reason and more, with his father ailing, with Richard and the French King encamped outside Tours, just a day's

  36 march from here. Richard has much to answer for, in truth. To war upon his own father . . ." She shook her head. "At least John is loyal." HENRY moaned, turned his face into the pillow. His shirt was soaked with sweat; so, too, were the sheets, damp and darkly splotched. A servant had removed his shoes and chausses, and his legs looked absurdly white and frail, utterly incongruous supports for that barrel chest, those massive shoulders. But even that once-mighty chest seemed somehow shrunken, diminished. It was impossible for John to recognize in this bedridden invalid the father who'd cast so colossal a shadow, larger than life, omnipotent: King of England, Lord of Ireland and Wales, Duke of Normandy and Gascony, Count of Anjou, Touraine, and Maine, liege lord of Brittany, Auvergne, and Toulouse. Henry was breathing through his mouth, gulping air as if each breath might be his last. Saliva had begun to dribble down his chin, but John could not bring himself to wipe it away, shrank from touching that wasted flesh. He was profoundly shocked that in a mere fortnight his father's illness should have made such lethal inroads; until this moment he'd not acknowledged that the illness might be mortal. "John? Thank God you've come. He's done little but fret over you. Could you not have sent word that you'd gotten away safe from Le Mans?" Two weeks ago the town of Le Mans had fallen to the forces of John's brother Richard and Philip, the young French King. Henry and his followers had escaped the burning city just as the French army moved in, and in the confusion John had gotten separated from the others, had passed some harrowing days himself, in consequence. But he was not about to explain that now to the speaker, his illegitimate halfbrother Geoffrey. Like all of his brothers, Geoffrey was much older than John, well into his thirties, a tall, powerfully built man with sandy hair, Henry's flint-grey eyes, and an acerbic tongue. John did not feel for Geoffrey the consuming, corrosive jealousy that he did for Richard, but he had no more liking for this Geoffrey than he'd had for the dead brother who'd borne the same name. Ignoring the accusatory, querulous tone of the other's question, he said, "Christ, but he looks bad. Is he in much pain?" Geoffrey nodded. "All the time," he said bleakly, and then turned toward the bed as Henry stirred. The grey eyes opened, focused on John. "At last," he said huskily, held out his hand. "You did give me some bad moments this past week, lad." Jo
hn was much relieved at the hot, dry feel of the hand in his, hav-

  37 ing steeled himself for a touch cold and clammy. "You need not have vvorried, Papa. Are you not the one who always said I had more lives than a cat? Or was that the morals of a cat?" he added, coaxing from his father a grimacing smile, a cough masquerading as a chuckle. "Johnny ... I had William de Mandeville and William Fitz Ralph swear to me . . . swear that should any evil befall me, they'll surrender my castles to you, and to you alone. Not to Richard, God rot him, not to Richard ..." To John, that sounded more like a concession of defeat than a declaration of trust. "Surely you do not expect it to come to that, Papa?" There was a wine flagon on the bedside table, and Henry gestured, waited till John poured out a cupful. "Of course not, lad. You'll never see the day dawn when I let them get the better of me," he said, with a bravado that might have been more convincing had John not needed to help him up in order to drink. "Le Mans was not the first town I've lost in my life, will not be the last. . ." He drank deeply, signaled for John to lower him back against the pillows. "Johnny . . . listen, lad. I have not forgotten my promise to you. I do mean to give you the earldom of Mortain, give you the revenues from Cornwall ..." John's mouth twisted. For how many years had he been hearing this? Promises he had in plenty, but little else. His brother Henry had been the heir apparent, Geoffrey had been Duke of Brittany, and Richard was Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Poitou. But him? John Lackland. He'd been betrothed since age nine to his cousin Avisa, a bride to bring him the rich earldom of Gloucester, but that, too, was proving to be an empty expectation; the very least that could be said of a twelve-year-old betrothal was that his father was in no tearing hurry to have him tie so lucrative a nuptial knot. It was John's private suspicion that his father denied him incomes of his own for the same reason he'd refused to name Richard as his heir, to keep them close, puppet Princes who'd dance to his tune only. "I think you should rest now, Papa," he said, and Henry nodded; sweat was breaking out again on his forehead, trickling into his beard. "The fever is worse at night," he mumbled. "Stay with me till I sleep." The chamber was heavy with the fetid odors of illness, with stifling summer heat. John soon began to sweat, too, began to yearn for a lungful of the cooling night air so fatal to the sickroom. At last Henry found relief in sleep; his hold slackened, fingers no longer clutched. John gently disengaged his hand, wiped his palm against the sheet, and came to his feet.

  38 He stood for some moments looking down at his father, until joined by Geoffrey. "He's dying, is he not?" "Yes." Geoffrey gave John a thoughtful look. "You surprise me, John; you sound as if you care." John caught his breath. "Damn you, of course I care!" Henry groaned, fumbled with the blankets, and Geoffrey at once bent over the bed, making soothing sounds, lulling the older man back into sleep. John watched until Henry quieted again, then turned away with such haste that, to Geoffrey, it seemed not so much an exit as an escape. ENTERING his own chamber, John was reaching for a wine flagon when he caught movement from the corner of his eye, spun around to see the girl cowering in the shadows. "Who are you?" "Do not be angry, my lord," she pleaded, stumbling forward to make an exceedingly awkward curtsy. "I ... I am Lucy, and I am here because Master Randolph ... he thought..." Her painful stammer, her flaming face told John quite clearly what Master Randolph thought. His first impulse was to get rid of her, but even as the dismissal was forming on his tongue, he changed his mind. What better way to exorcise the horrors of the sickroom than with flesh that was smooth and whole and healthy? Moreover, he had ever hated to be alone. Tonight of all nights, even the company of this timid little maidservant was preferable to his own. "Remind me to thank Master Randolph," he said and smiled at her. "Be a good lass now and fetch me some wine." But the wine did not help as he'd hoped. Instead of dulling his anxieties, it acted as a stimulant, spurring his imagination into unpleasant excesses, conjuring up half-forgotten fears of boyhood and projecting them into a future that suddenly seemed fraught with menace. "He's dying, Lucy. Did you know that?" "Yes, my lord," she whispered. Hastening to refill his wine cup, she approached the bed and then skittered back out of range, putting him in mind of a squirrel caught between trees. He'd sent Lucy down to the buttery for another wine flagon when he heard a commotion in the stairwell. He sat up on the bed as Martin Algais and Lupescaire burst into the chamber. "Look what we found in the stairwell." Shoving Lucy forward into the room. "What is that saying about a bird in the hand?" John was not amused. Algais and Lupescaire were Brabanc.ons,

  39 jnen who sold their swords to the highest bidder. In the past he had permitted, even encouraged, familiarity, dicing and drinking with them, treating them as intimates. But tonight he had no desire for their company* and he found himself resenting the way they were making free with what was his, Lupescaire helping himself to the wine while Martin Algais backed Lucy into a corner, laughing at her ineffectual attempts to fend off his roving hands. "I do not recall summoning you," John said irritably, as Lupescaire handed him a brimming wine cup. "The talk amongst our men is that the old King is in a bad way. You did see him, my lord; how does he, in truth?" John could not, in fairness, fault them for their concern; their future, like his own, rose and fell with each labored breath Henry drew. But they were servants, companions, handpicked hirelingsnot confidants. "Well enough," he said, had his cup halfway to his mouth when Lucy screamed. His hand jerked, and wine splashed onto the bed, splattered his tunic. John jumped to his feet with an oath. "Damn your soul, Martin, look at this!" He stared down at the wine spill in disgust, then turned to glare at Algais. "Must you ever have your hand up a woman's skirts? If you want to tumble a wench, you can damned well do it someplace else than in my chamber. Let that girl be, and get a servant up here to change these bedcovers." But Algais did not move. Holding the weeping girl with one hand, with the other he reached for the neck of her gown, jerked until the material tore, baring her breasts. "Did you not hear me?" John demanded, astonished. "I told you to let the girl alone." "Why?" Algais sounded sullen, defiant. "We've shared women before; why not now?" Lupescaire put his wine cup down, eyes suddenly aglitter, cutting from John to Algais and back again. John's mouth went dry; never had either of them dared to defy him before. "Because I say so, Martin. You take what I choose to give you, no more and no less." Algais had very pale eyes, an unblinking, feral stare. But after a few frozen breaths, he loosened his hold on Lucy. "You want me to ask? Then I'm asking. I have taken a fancy to this one; let me have her for an hour." It would be so easy to agree, a face-saving solution for them both, and John was very tempted; he'd never had a stomach for confrontation. But he knew better, knew it had to be all or nothing with a man like Martin Algais. "No," he said.

  40 f 41 Algais's fingers clenched, dug into Lucy's upper arm, and she sobbed anew. But then he pushed her away. John's breathing slowed, steadied. "Go down to the great hall," he said. "Send a servant up to me. You need not come back after. I've no use for you tonight." He'd won. They did as he bade, if not docile, at least unrebelling. John moved to the table, poured the last of the wine with a shaking hand. He knew them for what they were, his pet wolves, but he'd never thought they might turn on him. He knew why, of course. For the same reason that Geoffrey had suddenly dared to voice his dislike. The scent of blood was in the air. Lucy was still sobbing, and he snapped, "Will you stop your whimpering, girl? You were not hurt, after all!" But as he turned toward her, he saw that was not true. There was an angry red welt upon her left breast; there would soon be an exceedingly ugly bruise. "Do not cry, lass," he said, more gently, and then she was on her knees before him, clinging to his legs, weeping incoherently. It was some moments before he could make sense of her sobbing, before he realized that she was feverishly, hysterically thanking him for saving her from Martin Algais. John choked back an unsteady, mirthless laugh, raised her up. "Lucy, listen to me. Dry your tears and go down to the hall. Find my squire, tell him to get up here. Then go to the kitchen, tell the cooks I said to give you mutton fat for that bruise." As he spoke, he w
as steering her toward the door. "After that, lass, go to bed . . . your own." Giving him an incredulous look, she fled. Within moments his squire was panting up the stairs. "My lord, what is amiss? That girl acted so strange . . ." "Get our men together. I want us ready to ride within the hour." "Ride where? My lord, it's full dark. Where would we go? At such an hour, we might well have to bed down by the roadside" "I was giving you a command, not inviting a debate. I want to be gone from here as soon as we can saddle up, and if you make me repeat that, you'll have more regrets than you can handle. Now see to it!" Hastily the man said, "I will, my lord, indeed. But. . . but what of your lord father? I've been told he sleeps; is it your wish that he be awakened ere you depart?" "No," John said. "Let him sleep." "i KNOW you Angevins have ever been short of brotherly love, but surely John is not as worthless as you think? Admittedly, I know him not well, but he never struck me as a fool." "Oh, John is clever enough. But what do brains avail a man if he does lack for backbone?" In Richard's lexicon of insults, that was the most damning accusation he could make, and to Philip, it cast a revealing light upon Richard's relationship with his younger brother. He found himself feeling a touch Of sympathy for John, who'd been weighed against Richard's exacting standards of manhood and found wanting, for he knew that he, too, had failed to measure up in Richard's eyes; their friendship had never been the same since Richard discovered that he had an irrational fear of horses, rode only the most docile of geldings. "But to be fair," Richard said grudgingly, "my father has ever played the same game with John as he did with me and, whilst they lived, Geoffrey and Henry, promising all and delivering nothing. Although the one time he did entrust John with power of his own, sent him to Ireland, it was an unmitigated disaster. So badly did John bungle his rule that he achieved the all but impossible; he got the Irish chieftains to stop squabbling with one another and unite against him!" "Surely that was Henry's blunder as much as John's. You do not send a boy of seventeen to do a man's work."