Rhiannon

by Roberta Gellis

  Isabella had already told her brother of Adam’s suspicions, but Richard only laughed and kissed her and called her a nervous goose. Thus, when Simon’s name was brought to her, she bade her maidservant bring him into Richard’s bedchamber, where he was soaking off the dirt and sweat of travel in a tub.

  “Tell him I am not making it up,” she cried, as Simon stepped in and the servant closed the door behind him.

  Simon bowed, a little embarrassed by the look of surprise on Richard’s face. The Earl of Pembroke was a big man, as tall as Simon but broader and heavier, his shoulders and arms seamed with the scars of combat. The room was warm, redolent with the scent of the herbs Isabella had strewn in the bath water. Somehow a sense of urgency and discussion of plots seemed out of place. Although Simon was sure that danger existed and that Isabella’s nervousness was justified, he felt his warning would sound ridiculous.

  “My lord,” he said uneasily, “I am Simon de Vipont—”

  “William’s squire! I remember you.”

  “Simon, tell him! Make him believe it is dangerous to stay,” Isabella repeated urgently.

  “It is also dangerous to go,” Richard said, a little more sharply. “Have sense, Isabella. If I am not here to answer this third summons, Henry will have the right to call me a traitor. And I am not! I only want the laws to be observed.”

  “Then you want more than any man is likely to have, my lord,” Simon said.

  “That is a hard thing you have said,” Richard rejoined cautiously. “I hope the bad response the king has had to his summonses may have given him food for thought—”

  “The wrong kind of thought,” Simon interrupted.

  Richard sat more upright in the bath. “What are you talking about?”

  “You have not heard about Bassett’s land?”

  “I know the king seized the manor at Compton on the excuse that Bassett was de Burgh’s man and Compton was too close to Devizes where de Burgh is imprisoned—”

  “No. This is a new thing. Bassett was disseisined of Upavon—”

  “What? When?” Richard rose from the tub, splashing water in all directions. Isabella hurried forward with a drying cloth, which he seized from her and began to ply about his body hurriedly. “Why did you not tell me this,” he said to her, “instead of that farrago about—” He stopped abruptly and looked away from Isabella toward Simon.

  “I thought you knew,” Isabella said, but Richard did not look back at her.

  “Tell me the whole,” he said to Simon.

  By the time the story had been related, including Henry’s reaction to Bassett’s attempt to obtain justice and the demand for hostages, Richard was dressed and seated beside the empty hearth reflectively sipping a cup of wine. Simon had remembered Geoffrey’s oft-repeated advice that too much passion made the most solid fact sound suspect, so he had described the situation more calmly than those who knew him would have expected. It was clear that his temperate manner had convinced Pembroke.

  “I am caught in a cleft stick,” Richard said bitterly, his fine eyes bleak. “If I do not cry out against the king’s action and uphold Bassett, I will not only violate what I believe to be right, but I will seem to break faith with a long-time friend of our family. And if I do protest, I will be playing into Henry’s hand, offering him an excuse to—”

  “If you will give me leave, my lord, to say what I think—and what Sir Adam, my brother, thinks—it is that it does not matter what you do unless it be to yield entirely. Even then I am not sure the king will be content. What he did to de Burgh seems to have given him an appetite for subduing to utter helplessness every man in the land.”

  “I told you, Richard—” Isabella interrupted.

  “Hush, Isabella,” Richard said absently, his eyes fixed on Simon. “What do Lord Ian and Lord Geoffrey say?” he asked slowly.

  “My father says nothing, except that Henry does not mean evil. He remembers a golden-haired child bereft of a father and with a mother who had no soul. Lord Geoffrey says nothing also, but—but he looks like death. What can he say, my lord? Henry is his cousin and—and I cannot deny has always behaved most lovingly to him. Even this spring when he dismissed all his castellans and put his castles into the hands of those two—”

  “Mind your tongue before my sister,” Richard said, half jesting, but with the jest covering a warning as servants entered the room to empty the bath water. Simon drew a breath; the servants belonged to the brother of the king.

  “My brother-by-marriage is tied with bond upon bond,” Simon said. “He could no more fail to support the king than my Lord of Cornwall.”

  Reminded of something that had been overwhelmed in his sister’s excited greeting and then in Simon’s news, Richard asked, “Where is Cornwall?”

  “He had business with the king,” Isabella said, staring hard at her brother and then letting her eyes slip to the servants and back again. “I sent word that you had come. He will be here as soon as he can.”

  Simon’s breath drew in again, but Richard’s eyes flicked to him and he said nothing. As if the preceding question and answer were of no importance, Richard said, “You were knighted before my brother died, were you not?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Do you now hold, or have you taken over your father’s meinie?”

  “Papa is not so old as that,” Simon said. “In any case, the lands are mostly my mother’s. They will be Geoffrey’s to worry about when— But that will be many, many years.”

  “Lord Geoffrey’s?” Richard asked, actually interested as well as relieved to have an unexceptional subject to discuss while the servants tidied the room. “How does that come about? Is not Adam your mother’s eldest son?”

  “Yes, but Adam inherited his father’s lands. My mother has full power over her own, and chooses to leave them in the female line. My sister Joanna will hold Roselynde and my mother’s other honors, and it is already settled that the bulk of the lands will go after her to Sybelle, and then to Sybelle’s eldest daughter.”

  “You do not mind?” Richard asked curiously.

  “God, no!” Simon exclaimed. “That is not to my taste at all, to be tied to a seat of justice and an account book. My father has already given me what I most desired. With Prince Llewelyn’s permission, he has ceded to me his Welsh properties.”

  “Welsh? You are vassal to Lord Llewelyn?” Richard asked, leaning forward with sudden alertness.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Are you in good repute with him?”

  “Very good.” Simon replied, and then, seeing it was important for some reason, he added, “He has given me permission to seek the hand of his natural daughter, Lady Rhiannon, in marriage.”

  “Seek? If he desires you for a son—”

  “Lady Rhiannon is not that kind of woman,” Simon said stiffly. “She cannot be given away like a horse or a parcel of land.”

  “Well, as soon as she sees your face, she will be lost.” Richard laughed. “We can consider that bond as good as made.”

  He leaned back in the chair, his eyes fixed on nothing while he considered certain possibilities uncovered by Simon’s willingness to save him and the connection with Llewelyn. Thus, he missed Simon’s expression. Isabella did not, and she bit her lip, hoping her brother would say no more on the subject of marriage. She held her breath as Richard turned to look intently at Simon again. The servants were leaving. When the last two were gone, staggering slightly under the weight of the tub, which was still a third full of water and would be tipped empty in the yard, he signed to Isabella, who went and closed the door.

  “Did you love William?” Richard asked unexpectedly.

  “Yes,” Simon replied shortly, but his bright eyes misted, and Richard was more assured of the depth of his feeling than if he had made a passionate avowal.

  “Then—” Richard began.

  “Richard,” Isabella interrupted, “the reason my husband is not here to greet you is that he does not wish to lie to his b
rother. If he does not know you are here, he does not have to tell Henry. Will you not take warning and go, dearling?”

  Distracted from what he had been about to say to Simon, Richard frowned. “But you just said you sent him word that I had come.”

  “The servants! I sent him word not to come home,” Isabella said with tears in her eyes. “Oh, Richard, it hurts me how much he suffers. In his heart he agrees with you. He has done everything from pleading on his knees to threatening to turn rebel himself—but he cannot do that, no matter how wrong—”

  “I am no rebel!” Richard thundered. “That I am here in answer to Henry’s summons is proof I am a loyal vassal. I have a right, even a duty, to complain of a breach of law and custom.”

  “If you do, you will be taken prisoner,” Simon warned.

  “And if I do not, outlawry will be cried on me,” Richard responded angrily.

  “It is better to be a free outlaw than an unoutlawed prisoner,” Simon remarked cynically. “Think what has befallen de Burgh, who yielded and threw himself upon the king’s mercy. My lord, I am young, and you doubtless think I see all things as black or white. Let me ask Geoffrey and my father to speak to you. You know both are loyal to the king, but—but neither would betray you.”

  “Yes, yes, please, Richard,” Isabella pleaded.

  There was a little silence while Richard considered Simon’s remark, the offer that followed, and the result of the action he would have to take if Geoffrey and Ian confirmed that the situation was really desperate. Then he said, “Very well, I would be glad and grateful. Before you go, however—Isabella, will you go and tell someone to ready Simon’s horse?”

  Her face whitened. “Do you no longer trust me, Richard?”

  “With my own life, to the uttermost, sweet sister, but—but if I leave this house without attending the council, as you have urged me so strongly to do, it is most likely that, within days, your husband and I will be enemies—”

  “No, Richard, no!”

  “Did you not just say he would support his brother? Now, now, Isabella, do not weep. I know you will not do me, nor anyone else, hurt apurpose, but there are questions I wish to ask that—well, if you never heard either question or answer, no blush or look could give a hint to Richard that you knew more than you were willing to tell him. There will be strains enough between you and your husband if he and I… I do not wish to add to that. Go, my dear.”

  “It is monstrous,” Isabella whispered, but she was a sensible woman and understood her brother was right. Her husband had enough problems without adding the knowledge that his wife was concealing information from him. She wiped her eyes and left the room.

  Simon was puzzled. “I will tell you anything I can, my lord,” he said, “but I do not know anything more than I have already said.”

  “I do not want information. That was just for Isabella’s ears. I do not distrust her purposes, but she might say something thoughtlessly… She is only a woman, after all. I wish to ask you where you stand in this.”

  “With you,” Simon responded at once, his lips tightening. “Somehow the king must be constrained to obey the law.”

  “Do you understand what you are saying, Simon? To stand with me, if worse comes to worst, may set your hand against your own father and brothers.”

  “Not Adam,” Simon said, and then swallowed. Geoffrey would certainly respond to Henry’s call to arms if one should be issued. Then relief brightened his eyes. “And not Papa either. If I am with you, he will take the excuse of his age to send his men out in Geoffrey’s care. I do not need to worry about Geoffrey coming to blows with me. Wherever I am, he will not be. Papa always said Geoffrey was too clever by half. He will manage to avoid me somehow—if I cannot avoid him.”

  “And you may be sure that I will do my uttermost that you avoid each other. But this is going too far. I have no intention of making war on the king. God forbid! He is my lord. I have given my oath to support him—”

  “In all that is right,” Simon inserted quickly. “Not in oppressing his people, robbing them, imprisoning them—”

  “That is true, but still I would not wage war against my overlord if any other path is open to making him mend his ways. Let us not talk of such extreme measures. Perhaps I am too much moved by what you have told me. What I should have asked is whether you would be willing—should it become necessary—to be an emissary for me to Lord Llewelyn.”

  “Of course,” Simon answered, almost too quickly, then flushed.

  A violent joy suffused him. When Rhiannon had bid him go at the end of May, he had done so, telling himself furiously that she was quite right. No doubt he was ensorcelled by her presence. If he returned to the civilized and elegant women of England, he would soon grow disdainful of her wild, primitive charm. Only he had not been able even to try. Such a sense of disgust filled him each time he began a flirtation that he fled away. He could not even take joy in those old partners he did not need to woo, who did not demand sweet words but only desired the sensual pleasure his strong, skilled body could provide. He could ease his body, just as he could use a chamber pot, but there was no pleasure in it. He desired only Rhiannon.

  By June, Simon would have been on his way back to Wales, ready, like the courtly lovers in romances whom he had always ridiculed, to plead for a smile, a look, a single word—except that he knew Rhiannon would say he had not been away long enough. Pride, too, warred with love and might have lost if he had not been caught up in the political problems the king was creating. Still, Simon was not yet directly concerned with the actions of the English king. He would not be directly affected by Henry’s lunacies until Ian died and Simon did homage for the northern lands. However, what happened in England always affected Wales. Besides, Simon knew it was useful to have firsthand knowledge of what was going on, rather than garbled rumors or the sometimes deliberately slanted news in his mother’s letters. Alinor was a great one for bending the truth a little this way or that to forward her own purposes.

  This, coupled with the fact that Simon knew he could not say to Rhiannon I have been constant without sounding ridiculous when he had been away for less than three months, kept him from returning to her. Now, however, Richard was offering him the perfect excuse to do what he ached to do. Even if he were not sent back to Wales at once, there would be high excitement in being with Richard Marshal and—whatever the earl said about not wanting to oppose the king—Simon was sure there would be fighting. That would at least serve to take his mind off Rhiannon.

  “If you will give me leave, my lord,” Simon said quickly, “I will bring back my men with me when I bring Geoffrey and my father. Then I can accompany you when you go.”

  “I will be happy to have you, having come with only four men, but do you think it wise to associate yourself with me so openly? Will Lord Ian be willing?”

  “He will be so glad to be rid of me,” Simon said merrily, “that he would welcome it if I accompanied the Devil himself. He thinks me too outspoken.” Then he added more soberly, “If you would consent to a small subterfuge, my lord, and play the part of one of my men-at-arms until we are clear of the gates, you would be safer, and the question of my being in your company would never arise.”

  Simon was a little afraid Richard would be insulted by the notion that he should conceal himself, but Richard was too practical to allow false pride to endanger him. “Good!” Richard exclaimed. “Excellent! I do not believe I was noticed coming in, and if I am not remarked leaving, it will be less trouble all around. Also, it will be better if you are not known by the court to be my man. If I wish to reach the king’s ear, I will be able to do so through you and Lord Geoffrey. By all means, I will be your man-at-arms, with a heavy cloak to cover my mail—you can say I have a fever, if asked.”

  It was obvious that Richard had become convinced by Simon’s warning and had accepted the necessity of flight. His later conversation with Ian and Geoffrey confirmed that beyond doubt. Geoffrey had heard enough to be sure and make
Richard sure that there was a definite plan afoot now to seize him, which would make him an even more powerful object lesson and would destroy the focal point of all opposition to the king. Geoffrey looked haggard as he related what he knew.

  “It is a sickness,” Ian said, his voice shaking a little. “This is not Henry—I swear it is not. He looks and talks like a man raving with fever. I have known Henry all his life, from a babe, and he is a loving person who greatly desires to do good.”

  “I cannot understand it,” Richard agreed. “It is not as if Henry even enjoyed the business of ruling. You know he was happy to leave that in de Burgh’s hands. William wrote me often enough to complain that whenever he brought a matter to the king’s notice he would be told to ask the Earl of Kent.”

  “No, Henry does not enjoy the business of ruling—but Winchester does,” Geoffrey said tiredly.

  “That is silly,” Simon remarked. “If the king does not wish to hold the reins in his own hands, why should he go to the trouble of casting out de Burgh only to put Winchester in his place?”

  “There were reasons enough,” Geoffrey replied. “For one thing, the barons were all crying that de Burgh had grown too great. There was some truth in it, but there was also considerable ill will because Hubert was foolish in one thing only. He believed that if he were truly devoted to the interests of the king and the kingdom, he did not need to use smooth words to explain what he did.”

  Richard Marshal snorted. “I know that, too. He set up William’s back, and you know William was not one to seek a quarrel. There was a matter of a parcel of land that he settled in William’s favor, but he was so coarse that William was more affronted than if he had settled it against William’s right.”

  Geoffrey sighed. “That was what really ruined the chancellor—that manner. It was not only the barons that he treated without proper dignity—it was the king also. He acted always as if Henry were an ignorant child.”

  That time Simon snorted, and Geoffrey looked at him reprovingly.