Here Be Dragons - 1 Sharon Penman (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📖

Joanna . . . I'm sorry, love, I swear I am."To be offered absolution when she'd been expecting damnation Was, to Joanna, nothing less than miraculous, and when Llewelyn took

248a step toward her, she more than met him halfway, flung herself into his arms with a choked cry."I thought you'd never forgive me, never. Llewelyn, I am so sorry. I had not the right to speak to you as I did, no right to reproach you. It is not a wife's place to question her husband's actions. I know that. But I... I was so jealous, so very jealous . . ."Llewelyn stroked her hair, tightened his arms around her. "Joanna, you had every right. Let's sit on the settle and talk about it."Joanna accepted a cupful of mead and, when urged by Llewelyn, even took a few bites of a cheese-filled wafer, but she tasted none of it. She still could not quite believe Llewelyn was here, sitting beside her on the settle, sharing her mead cup, for the first time calling her "love" as if he meant it."I think you need to know how we look upon women. It is true, lass, that aWelshwoman cannot inherit her father's lands, whereas she would have a right of inheritance in England. But that is for the same reason that our laws do exclude men maimed, deaf, crippled, or stricken with leprosy. It was feared, you see, that women and such men could not hold their lands against attack.But we do not claim that womanly weakness on the battlefield should make her subordinate in all else, too, as you Normans do. Our women cannot be wed against their will, and a Welsh wife has no less right to walk away from an unhappy marriage than does her husband.""But Llewelyn . . . the Church does recognize only three grounds for voiding a marriage: a previous plight troth, kinship within the seventh degree, or spiritual affinity such as acting as godparent.""Well, to tell you true, Joanna, when the Church's teachings conflict with the old customs, we tend to go our own way. As in our preference for marrying cousins. We have a saying, love: 'Marry in the kin and fight the feud with the stranger.' So when it comes to interpreting the marriage bond, we follow Hywel the Good rather than the Pope."Llewelyn laughed suddenly. "I've been told that some Norman churchmen see my success as divine proof of the power of legitimacy. My father lorwerth was a child of Owain Fawr's first marriage; when Owain later married his cousinCrisiant, the Church refused to recognize the union, and when he would not abjure Crisiant, Thomas a Becket excommunicated him. So they see my triumph over my uncle5 Davydd and Rhodri as ordained, they being sons of the so-called incestuous marriage. The only flaw in that theology is that my mother and father were themselves first cousins!"He handed Joanna back the mead cup, said, "But we were talking ° how we end a marriage. It may always be done by mutual consent. An then, a husband may disavow his wife if she claims to be a virgin and

249d'scovers on their wedding night that she was not, or if he finds her promising circumstances with another man, of course, or if her mi . e portion fell short of what was promised."Llewelyn had been, for some moments now, playing with her ha fne feel of his fingers on her throat was so delightfully distracting i Joanna that she was not fully concentrating upon what he was sayin But at that, she smiled up at him, murmuring, "Then you do have « for better or worse, since my father handed Ellesmere Castle over to y« months ago, I would never be unfaithful, and I am indeed a virgin.""For much too long, I think," he said softly, dark eyes promising enough to bring a blush to Joanna's face. "But do you not want to knot how a wife may shed an unwanted husband? There are four grievanc that will gain her freedom:if the man contracts leprosy, if he has fd breath, if he is incapable in bed... or if he does three times dishorn their marriage vows."Joanna all but choked on her mead. "Now you are teasing me!""No," he said, "I am not, love. The first two times that a Welsh wif discovers her husband has bedded with another woman, she has tit right to demand from him payment of a gowyna fine, if you willfi his adultery. With his third fall from grace, she may leave him, althouji if she does not, she then has no further cause for complaint."Llewelyn paused. "There is one more reason for ending a marriagi Joannaif a husband does ever bring another woman under his wife' roof.""As you did with Cristyn?" Joanna whispered, and he nodded."Yes, as I did with Cristyn. Amongst our people, that is one of th three great scandals, and the wife may at once disavow the marriagi disavow the husband who has so wronged her.""I. . I would never do that, Llewelyn." Joanna was stunned; in he world, laws such as these were more than radical, they were revolution ary. She was silent for a time, trying to take in this astonishing ne» insight, that Llewelyn, not she, had been in the wrong."I thank you for telling me. You did not have to, you know . . ."It came to her then, the reason for Llewelyn's remarkable restraint, and e cried, "Now Ido understand why, as angry as you were this morn you did not touch me! It was because I was in the right, was it not?"Joanna, I've never hit a woman in my life. You've not been listen8 to me, love. Did I not tell you we do not treat our women as th °nnans do?Amongst my people, we do not take out our bad temper P°n our wives just because they happen to be handy. Welsh law doe w a husband