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

whatsoever, "Leave me. All of you."The men did not need to be told twice; even Will obeyed at once But Joanna's discipline took her only as far as the door. There she whirled, ran back, and knelt by John's chair. "Let me stay, Papa," she pleaded. "Please . . ."The face upturned to his was waxen, wet with tears. John put his arm around her, and she began to sob in earnest. He drew her closer, let her weep against his shoulder, and after a brief time her sobs subsided, gave way to sighs and hiccups. Joanna's first flow of tears had been for herself, for her own loss.But now she wiped her face with her sleeve, ready to share that loss, recognizing that her father's sense of bereavement might be even greater than hers."Papa . . . I'm so sorry." Joanna remembered, too vividly, what it had been like to lose her mother, remembered not so much her grieving as her sheer terror. Did men and women grown ever experience blind, suffocating panic like that? She did not know. Her father's face was shuttered, unreadable."Papa . . . you have not said a word, not one. Do you not want to talk? How do you feel?" She looked up at him anxiously, no longer a child, not yet a woman, tears still glistening in the slanting hazel eyes, Eleanor's eyes, and John was suddenly glad he'd allowed her to stay."How do I feel?" He found that was not an easy question to answer, at last said, "Alone . . . very alone. And angry, so angry I can think of nothing else."Adult emotions were no longer as mysterious or inexplicable to Joanna as they'd once been, but this was utterly beyond her comprehension. "Angry ... at your mother? Because she died? But why? I do not understand, Papa.""Neither do I, Joanna." And in that moment John sounded no less bewildered than his twelve-year-old daughter. "Neither do I."

^WINCHESTER, ENGLANDSeptember 1204|JUNkJuMMONED by her father, Joanna left London on Tuesday morning of Michaelmas week Traveling in the company of her Aunt Ela, Countess of Salisbury, they reached Winchester at dusk on Thursday There they found other ladies of the courtlike them, summoned to attend the King But John had not yet arrived fromClarendon, had still not come by noon the next dayWith so many people to be sheltered, beds were scarce, and Joanna's aunt was given a cramped chamber musty with the rancid odors nsmg up from the castle moat It was a far less desirable room than those taken by Maude de Braose andIsobel, Countess of Pembroke, but Ela voiced no objections Although she had brought her husband an earldom, his fief was neither large nor lucrative, Will held only fifty knights' fees, and no castles, although John did allow him to make use of Salisbury Castle In contrast, William de Braose held no less thanthree hundred fifty knights' fees and some sixteen English and Welsh castles Ela, a shy, self-effacing young woman, accepted the realities of power without a murmur of protest, would never have dreamed of contesting wills with so aggressive a personality as Maude de Braose It did occur to Joanna, who liked Maude not at all, but her youth and illegitimacy effectively rendered her muteJoanna was standing now on the stairs outside their bedchamber, frozen with rage The door was only slightly ajar, but the voices within came quite clearly to her ears, so audibly that she recognized the speakers without difficultyMaude de Braose, Maude's daughter Margaret de Lacy, wife to the Lord of Meath, and Isobel, wife to the powerful William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke She had yet to hear her aunt's voice, however, and while that did not surprise her, it did anger her Ela was

172her father's sister by marriage; common courtesy, if not loyalty, shouu compel her to speak up for him."I had a letter from my husband today, Mama. Word reached Ire land a fortnight ago that Poitiers fell to the French on August tenth, bm Walter refuses to believe it.""After the defeats of the past year? After losing all of Normandy jn less than a twelvemonth? You could tell me tomorrow that Philip had taken London itself, and I'd not think to doubt you!""Ah, Maude, that's not strictly fair. I grant you the King made some grave errors of judgment. My husband warned him it was folly to release the deLusignans, no matter how many hostages they offered up as pledges for their loyalty. Nor did John help himself by relying upon so brutal a captain asLupescaire; a man does not gain himself a name like 'the Wolf without cause, and I doubt not he affronted many who might otherwise have stayed loyal toJohn. But""Yet men such as that do have their uses. In Wales we"Most people found themselves at a distinct disadvantage when competing withMaude de Braose for conversational control, but Isobel of Pembroke was a remarkably single-minded woman, little given to self-doubt. "If I may finish, Maude," she said, placidly overriding Maude's interruption with one of her own, "not all of his troubles were of the King's making. His lack of moneyyou know as well as I that Richard drained the royal treasury dry. And in all honesty, some of John's difficulties with his Norman barons can be traced, too, to his brother's reign. Richard laid a heavy hand upon the land, and there were many who chafed under it.""I daresay there's some truth in what you say, Isobel. But that changes not the fact that within two years of his triumph at Mirebeau, John did loseNormandy, Anjou, and Touraine, and now most of Poitou. Say what you will aboutRichard, but think you that he would have stayed in England whilst CastleGaillard was under siege? Not if he had to swim the Channel with his sword in his teeth! Mayhap he, too, would have lost Normandy, but we may be sure thatRichard would have lost his life, as well, would