Rhiannon

by Roberta Gellis

  “The king is no fool,” he said sharply, “and do not ever think he is. Unfortunately, he is not interested, really, in governing. He loves other things better—beautiful churches, music, books, fine clothes, merriment—but his mind is very good. De Burgh fell because when Henry said he wanted something, the chancellor replied, ‘No, do not be a fool.’ De Burgh should have sought a way to satisfy the king’s desires or distract him from them, although usually they were not bad in themselves. But de Burgh was too busy governing. Henry was only a figure to mouth his words and sign his decrees—and Henry felt it.”

  “Yes,” Ian agreed, “you are right. I think Henry tried to win Hubert’s love. I suppose in his own style Hubert did love him, but he did not show it in the right way. Henry needs to be loved—needs it. That father and mother…”

  He closed his eyes and shuddered. Richard nodded in sympathy. He had spent some years in John’s court as a hostage for his father’s behavior. He was somewhat surprised at the violence of Ian’s reaction because he did not know that Ian understood that part of Henry all too well. Ian had himself been cruelly mistreated as a child. Geoffrey’s lips twisted. There was nothing anyone could say about Henry’s mother that was too bad as far as he was concerned. That vain and heartless woman had made four years of Geoffrey’s life a hell of misery. Nonetheless, he did not lose track of the point he was trying to make.

  “Winchester is more clever. He does not offend the king in the same way. He treats him with great deference, and even allows him to work at kingship until he begins to be bored. Most of all, he does not tell Henry that the beautiful things he loves are a waste. It is most unfortunate that Winchester does not understand this realm. He could manage the king very well, if only he could be brought to see that absolute power will never be accepted by the lords.”

  “Yes, and he has even infected Henry with the idea that he is ‘divinely’ king,” Ian said. “Winchester seems to forget that the oaths we swear work both ways. The king has duties and obligations to us just as we have to him.”

  “True enough,” Richard agreed. “Moreover, there are laws and customs that no king can ignore. If those are not held by king and man alike, there can be no order, no security in the realm. No man could trust the king or any other man. The law must be upheld by all.”

  “And Henry knows this,” Ian insisted. “Your father taught him and de Burgh also—he abode by the law, however unfortunate his manner of doing it. I say again that what Henry has is a sickness, a fever roused in him by Winchester’s mistaken ideas. There is no deep, basic fault in the king as there was in his father.”

  Richard did not answer directly. He agreed with Ian only to a certain extent. He had been a child in court when Henry was a younger child, and he knew the king’s capacity for spite and deceit. However, he also knew Henry’s capacity for loving and giving. Richard agreed that the king was acting out of character in this current violent severity. Henry did not enjoy severity. The king was very generous; he liked to give and to be thanked for it. He did not like to face anxiety and animosity and criticism and could not bear to be blamed for any fault.

  “Well and so, but what do you recommend that I do?” Richard asked.

  “Go back to your own lands, my lord,” Geoffrey replied promptly.

  “Even if I be outlawed?”

  Geoffrey was silent for a moment; he hated to say what he must say, for loyalty conflicted with justice. “Yes,” he got out at last. “Hold your lands, my lord, with force if you must, although I hope it will not come to that. It would be harder to regain what had fallen into the king’s hands—and your efforts to regain your own would wake new anger and resentment. If Henry holds nothing of yours, which he might be tempted to give another—”

  There was a multiple, inarticulate sound. Every man there knew of Henry’s predilection to giving away what was not his—particularly to foreign relatives and suppliants.

  Geoffrey glanced around but did not comment directly. “It will be much easier to forgive and forget,” he continued, “if the king does not need to disgorge what is bringing money into his purse or, perhaps, deprive a favorite of what he has gifted to him. To keep such a prize, there would be a temptation to maintain the state of enmity. You know how he has stripped de Burgh, little by little, of everything he could.”

  “I agree,” Ian said emphatically. “Only stay out of his hands until he has recovered from this fever, and all will be well. The words of outlawry are easily revoked when no other real amends must be made.”

  Chapter Five

  By the end of the first week of August, the doubts Kicva had felt about the need for a wedding dress for Rhiannon were dissipated. Rhiannon was ready to leave for her father’s court, and Math had chosen to go with her. Growling with rage, but not attempting to tear his way out, which he could do and would do if he did not wish to go, Math sat in his traveling basket on the croup of Rhiannon’s palfrey. If Math was going, there was no chance that Rhiannon would make any serious mistake.

  Kicva was highly amused by the relationship between her daughter and the big cat; obviously Math believed he owned Rhiannon rather than the other way around. And Rhiannon seemed to accept it. However, the fondness Kicva had for Math was not shared by Llewelyn, who kissed his daughter warmly enough in greeting but groaned when a bedlam of barking from the dogs was followed by yelps of pain and fear.

  “Have you brought that monster with you again?” he cried. “Do you not know a cat is no fit pet for a gentlewoman?”

  “Math is not my pet,” Rhiannon replied, laughing. “I am his—or, perhaps, we are friends, although he may not regard me highly enough for that honor.”

  “I hoped he was dead when you did not bring him last winter,” Llewelyn said sourly.

  The dogs having been routed, Math stalked solemnly up the hall, stopping before Llewelyn’s chair to regard him with an unwinking stare. The ruler of many men sighed. Math flitted his tail, seemingly contemptuous of what he saw, and walked on past Llewelyn toward the door that led to the hall of women. Rhiannon burst out laughing again at the look on her father’s face and embraced and kissed him warmly. Llewelyn looked almost as surprised as if the cat had done it, but very pleased.

  “Now, what has won me such a rare display of affection?” he asked fondly.

  “Your own love for me, of course,” Rhiannon replied. “Greater love no man can show than to endure Math for my sake.”

  That restored Llewelyn’s good humor completely, and he asked pleasantly for news of Kicva and the homestead. He did not ask why Rhiannon had come, assuming it was the usual combination of affection for him and a need for more varied company and conversation than could be obtained in Angharad’s Hall.

  After a week, however, he began to wonder. Rhiannon was inviting attention from the young bucks of the court in a way she never had before. Llewelyn was not too pleased; he had hoped she would take Simon, if she took anyone. When the second week had passed, Llewelyn was even less pleased. He began to fear that Rhiannon planned to choose her man in the ancient way; whoever survived the combat over her would take her. He could have stopped it, of course, by sending her away, but in a way it was useful. It was grossly inhibiting the favorite summer sport of raiding English strongholds in Wales and on the border. At the moment, Llewelyn did not want any action of his men to divert the attention of the English from the iniquities of their king and his ministers.

  After the drubbing Henry had taken in 1231 and the rebuilding of the keep called Mold, Llewelyn had expected a massive retaliatory invasion. Henry had been so busy destroying de Burgh, however, that he had not called up an army. Llewelyn knew that one was summoned now, to gather at Gloucester on the Assumption of Saint Mary, but what Henry planned to do with it was very doubtful. The stated purpose of the summons, Llewelyn’s informants told him, was to attack the vassals of Hubert de Burgh in Ireland. Llewelyn could not believe this. Not even Henry, much less that clever fox Winchester, would sail off to Ireland with an army wh
en half the men in the southwest were openly in rebellion and many barons throughout the rest of the country were on the brink of following that lead.

  Most likely the army was being readied to curb Gilbert Bassett and his brothers and henchmen. If so, the rest of the baronage might rise against Henry. Nothing could please Llewelyn better than a long, bloody civil war in England. It was greatly to his advantage, and he would do whatever he could to encourage it. However, it was also possible that the army was being gathered to attack Wales. A war with Llewelyn was one of the devices a clever minister or king might use to divert animosity from himself.

  Thus, Llewelyn had absolutely forbidden his major vassals to engage in even the smallest raid against English property. In fact, he had sworn that he would roast alive any man who dared steal a pig, a cow, even a chicken, and send him to the victim of the theft to replace the animal.

  It was easy enough to control the older, propertied men, but the younger ones, who depended for their livelihood on what they could steal in raids, were less amenable to reasons of a political nature. The hungriest of all for loot and glory were in his own court, Llewelyn knew, and the greediest and most ambitious of those hung around Rhiannon, eying each other hotly and watching lest one or another be favored. So long as they did that, held by the lure of the dower that could be expected from Llewelyn and the advantages of a blood bond with him as well as by Rhiannon’s beauty, they would not form a raiding band.

  Ordinarily Llewelyn preferred that the hungry young men prey on the border holdings or even raid into England than kill each other. He had good use for every fighting cock in his court. Just now, however, he would rather they kill each other over Rhiannon than that they disturb the precarious balance of politics with England. It was all the more amusing in that none of those who pursued his daughter had the least chance of success. And that brought Llewelyn back to wondering what Rhiannon thought she was doing.

  By that time Rhiannon herself could not have told him. When she first came to Aber, she had expected to look around for a day or two, choose the man who appealed to her most, and couple with him. That was simple enough in theory; in practice it seemed impossible. There were attractive men in plenty, and all were sufficiently eager to please her—and all were pleasing until Rhiannon brought her mind to the final stage of her plan. The truth was that she had not the slightest inclination to yield her body to any of them. The inescapable conclusion was that it was not a generalized desire that tormented her. She had not, as a heifer did, come into season. It was one single man her body craved.

  While Rhiannon wrestled with the new problem this revelation produced, she continued—because she could think of no way abruptly to terminate them—the flirtations she had begun. She did, of course, act with greater coolness, but this only produced still greater difficulties. Now that her mind was free of the preoccupation of which man to choose, she saw the animosity she had raised among her suitors. This sent her, filled with remorse, to her father, but he only laughed heartily and begged her not to leave or turn her pursuers away just yet.

  The explanation of his reasons for this request relieved Rhiannon’s mind but created a problem. She had intended to write to Simon and ask him to return. When she thought matters through, however, Rhiannon realized that the last person she wanted at court just now was Simon. Whether or not he was in sympathy with her father’s purpose of keeping his wild bucks from raiding, Simon was not likely to consent to being one suitor in a crowd of others. Besides, if she showed him favor, all the others might turn on him. Although in a general way Simon was well liked, it would be a far different matter to see a suitor from England run off with a Welsh prize even though Rhiannon had no intention of marrying. The satisfaction of her desire was reasonable, but she was strongly opposed to submitting her body or soul to the tether that marriage oaths would impose.

  Thus it was with more horror than pleasure that Rhiannon saw Simon ride into Aber on a fine afternoon in mid-August. Instinct conquered reason; Rhiannon fled—across the bailey, out the rear postern, down the precipitous slope that led up to the walls, and into the woods. Like a wild thing, she cowered behind a tangle of brush until the quiet of the afternoon wood brought her some calm. Even then, flight seemed the only answer.

  To return meant that her cheap device to escape her need for Simon would be exposed. Shame did not often touch Rhiannon. Fearlessness and honesty had protected her from the kind of actions that engendered shame. She had known that ugly emotion only as a result of a certain heedlessness that sometimes made her careless of the needs and feelings of others. Now that carelessness plus the fears that Simon had awakened in her had driven her into behavior she considered shameful.

  There was no way to hide what she had done—or was there? Rhiannon sat up straighter, and two squirrels that had been gathering food within feet of her, taking her for inanimate because of her stillness, chattered angrily and sprang for the nearest tree. She could say, truthfully, that she was following her father’s orders. And add spoken lies to the shame she felt already? No. It would be better to go secretly, before Simon knew she was at court.

  And not see him? There was a sickening sinking in Rhiannon, followed by a strange ache. Neither sensation could be real, she knew. Nor would seeing Simon do her the least good, she told herself bitterly. When he knew what she had been about, it was highly unlikely he would be willing to have anything to do with her. That decision did not produce an even greater depression as it should, perhaps, have done. Rhiannon knew that love prompted forgiveness. Let Simon hear the worst from others. If he came to her after that…

  In calculating her plans, Rhiannon had not included Math—a factor that could not, she soon found, be ignored. She had forgotten Math’s unusual fondness for Simon’s company. When she returned to Aber, warned the two men who had accompanied her, and packed her belongings, she found Math was missing. Calling him in the women’s quarters and in the stables, storage huts, and outdoor areas produced no result.

  Rhiannon was surprised. Although Math often ignored her when she called him at home, he was usually eager to go back to the hall in the hills and would stay close to her heels or come running when she began to pack. There was only one place he could be where he would not have heard her—in the great hall. She could only hope that Simon had left there already, and she peered in cautiously from a doorway not far from the dais where her father’s chair of state stood. The sight that met her eyes drew a gasp of combined amazement and fury and precluded any stealthy retreat from court.

  Simon and her father were talking very earnestly in low voices, Simon sitting on a stool drawn near Llewelyn’s chair. However, Rhiannon hardly noticed her father or his attitude. What had caused her gasp and the accompanying emotions was the sight of Math, sitting in Simon’s lap and purring away as Simon absently stroked his head and gently scratched under his chin. Escape was no longer possible.

  Stormily, Rhiannon went to tell her men she had changed her mind. They would stay at Aber. Then she stamped out to the women’s hall and unpacked. Finally, eyes gleaming with defiance, she came to the great hall. There she met only more frustration. Simon and her father had disappeared. Math, however, came to her at once, his tail high, purring, looking, to Rhiannon’s jaundiced eyes, inordinately pleased with himself.

  “Traitor!” she exclaimed bitterly. “Is this how you reward me for all my devoted service to you?”

  A low exclamation of fear close by made Rhiannon turn swiftly. She was about to say it was only a jest, but Mallt uerch Arnallt and Catrin uerch Pawl, the two ladies who had been nearest, were hurrying away, doubtless making signs against the evil eye. Now those two would probably spread the word that she had confirmed herself a witch and Math her familiar. She wished briefly that she was and that she could bespell their silly tongues to restrain their chatter, but she had not that kind of power.

  At odds with herself and knowing she would probably only make matters worse by trying to explain or, indeed, speaking to
anyone before she had calmed herself, Rhiannon went out to walk. This time Math followed, which drew from his mistress several even less favorable remarks on his character. She returned only when the light started to fail, not actually at peace with herself but determined to speak the plain truth to Simon and cleanse thoroughly the wound of shame.

  She found that Math was not the only traitor whom she had unwisely trusted. Simon darted forward as soon as she came in, his eyes glittering with excitement.

  “Your father tells me you have changed your mind,” he said, seizing her hand and kissing it.

  “Changed my mind about what?” Rhiannon countered coldly, infuriated all over again.

  About me, Simon nearly said, but he swallowed the impulse, realizing that he had been incredibly gauche. In his eagerness to commit himself to her immediately and irrevocably, he had said what must be wounding to the pride of any woman and, worse, made himself sound like a cocksure fool. What Rhiannon might confide in her father and what Llewelyn might pass on in a spirit of helpful mischief could not be wantonly exposed.

  “About being involved in your father’s political doings,” he said, eying the gentlemen who were converging on them with an unholy light in his eyes.

  Rhiannon looked over her shoulder and withdrew her hand hurriedly from Simon’s. He might have thought the glares directed at them were funny, but she did not. “I am glad to see you again, Sir Simon,” she said with reserve, “but I am not dressed for an evening in company.”

  “You are beautiful in any dress, Lady Rhiannon, even with cockleburs in your hair instead of pearls,” Simon remarked sententiously. As Rhiannon wrinkled her nose disdainfully and began to turn away, he continued with spurious gravity, “I think I like the cockleburs better, in fact. They are less expensive to gather, which must be a point to consider for a husband who is not rich.”

  She could not help laughing. Simon knew she had gems enough not to need more from a husband and that she cared very little whether she wore rubies or polished stones which could be had for the simple labor of picking them up from the ground and rolling them in a mill. Even so, in Welsh terms, Simon was rich.