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

Llewelyn is his daughter's husband, my lord Chester. Moreover, he has proven his loyalty in answering my brother's summons for war against theScots. I grant you he erred in disobeying John, in attacking Powys, but what's past is past, forgiven and forgotten, and he""Whatever makes you think I've forgiven him, Will?"Why, because . . . because you made him welcome at court, John, showed no sign that you bore him any ill will"I do not ever forget a wrong done me, Will. Not ever," John re-Peated softly, and again Richard heard someone catch his breath. Only e men whose swords were sold to the highest bidder, Falkes de^reaute and Robert de Vieuxpont, appeared unaffected by the threat.,ery other man in the room seemed to have taken John's ominous m'ssion to heart. Will looked troubled, Chester inscrutable, de Vesci

306r307grim, expressions of unease flickering from face to face, the awareries thatJohn's warning was meant as much for them as for his Welsh son in-law."You were all at Woodstock, saw what happened, saw what h dared to do." John's color had deepened; there was in the low, precise voice echoes of remembered rage. "For those of you who are not that well acquainted with Llewelyn ab lorwerth's predatory past, he seized power from his uncle at twenty-one, and in the intervening fifteen yea^ has steadily increased his holdingsalways at someone else's expense He'll eventually swallow up all of Wales ... if left to his own devices "Richard bit his lip, much disquieted. He knew Joanna had spoken privately to their father, had left for Wales confident she had convinced John thatLlewelyn had not known what his young allies meant to do. It bothered Richard that John had not been honest with Joanna, bothered him that John had been nursing a grudge for more than a year, bothered him that the other men were so quick to nod agreement. He knew he owed it to Joanna to object, to defend her husband. But he knew, too, that he was there only on John's sufferance, that there was no voice in council for the King's twenty-year-old bastard son, and that silenced him, that and an instinctive reluctance to move from the sidelines to center stage, to abandon the protective coloring developed during a solitary, introspective childhood, the unquestioning, fatalistic acceptance that had enabled him to look upon his father's darker side and neither approve nor condemn.It was Chester who unexpectedly did what Richard felt he could notoffer a measured, unimpassioned protest. "You understand the Welsh quite well, my liege, better than your brother ever did. And making use of one Welsh prince to checkmate another is indeed a shrewd and proven strategy for dealing withWales."John, too, was responsive to insinuation. He frowned, said challengingly, "But not this time?""Llewelyn ab lowerth is an unusual man, Your Grace. He is exceedingly ambitious, just as you say, but he is intelligent, too. I think he understands the limitations of power ... of Welsh power. And because he does, I would prefer to keep him as an ally, even if it means giving him a free hand inWales. I fear that if we do not, we risk pushing him into open rebellion.""And what if we do? Are you saying a Welsh rebel could prevail against theEnglish crown?" John's voice was scornful, but Chester refused the bait."No, Your Grace, of course I am not. He could not hope to defea you. But I am not sure you fully realize what victory might cost. It is t°° late, you see, to use a Gwenwynwyn or a Maelgwn to rein him in; t"1 balance of power has already shifted too far in his favor. If you do n°.jje to terms with him, it would not be enough to defeat him. You'd jjave to destroy him."Chester paused, waiting. But John made no response."As I said, Your Grace, I do not doubt the eventual outcome. But it ould be a drawn-out, bloody, and brutal war. Wars with the Welsh [ways are. They disappear into inaccessible mountain retreats, phantorn foes we cannot find.But they have no trouble finding us, my liege; they excel at ambush, at surprise attack and counterattack upon the morrow. There is no glory in wars against the Welsh, only bloodspattered rocks and shallow graves, and once you win, you find precious little for the plundering. I would not undertake such a war merely to rid myself of a man I could more easily befriend, Your Grace.""Would you not? And if I were to order you to do just that, order you to lead an army into Gwynedd, what then? Would you balk, beg off from a duty you find so distasteful?"The sarcasm was savage, utterly undeserved, and Richard winced. Chester had gone rigid in his chair; Richard was close enough to see how the muscles clenched along his jawline, how the tendons tightened in his throat. "I serve

the King's pleasure," he said, quite tonelessly. "When Your Grace commands, Iobey.""How very reassuring," John said dryly. His gaze shifted from Chester, moved slowly from face to face. The other men averted their eyes, guarded their thoughts. All save Will, who leaned across the table, put his hand upon John's sleeve, and asked what Richard so needed to know."John, Llewelyn is wed to your daughter. What of her? What of Joanna? I cannot believe you'd want to see her hurt."John exhaled a deep, drawn-out breath, stared down at his clenched fist, at the imprints his nails had left in the palm of his hand. "No, I would never want that," he said. "Never." He looked up then, raised troubled hazel eyes to his brother's face. "But I fear that marriage was a mistake, Will, a great mistake."

26CRICIETH CASTLE, NORTH WALESAugust 1210W, V YILLIAM de Braose turned from the window, from the shimmering blue expanse of the bay. "It is good of you, my lord, to make my grandson and me welcome at your castle of Cricieth.""To the Welsh, hospitality is a binding obligation. We