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

blood with a smile, and for that, Joanna would never forgive her. "Your jest is little to my liking,"she said, all the more furious that her voice was not as steady as she would have wished."But Madame . . . what have I said? How have I offended you?" Catherine, too, was on her feet now. Her distress seemed so genuine that Joanna felt the first glimmer of doubt."The entire court does know. Surely your husband would have told you . . .""Rhys never gossips," Catherine said simply. "I do not know of what you speak, my lady, I swear I do not."For a long moment, Joanna stared at her, and then sat down again. "If I did missay you, I am indeed sorry. You see, I thought you were mocking me.Llewelyn and I... we do not share a bed, and there is not a soul at Aber orRhosyr who does not know that...""I did not know, Madame," Catherine said, after some moments of silence. "That is not something Rhys would think to mention. It is not that unusual, after all, when the wife is quite young and her husband some years older than she."Some of Joanna's shame gave way to gratitude. Whether Catherine believed that or not, it was kind of her to say so, and she was very much relieved whenCatherine began tactfully to talk of other matters.Joanna was never able to pinpoint the exact moment when she let her defenses down. For the first time in five months she had a sympathetic ear, and it was perhaps inevitable that she would find herself confiding in Catherine, Catherine who spoke her own tongue, who knew what it was like to be a bride in a foreign land, Catherine who offered friendship. She did not lower all of the barriers, spoke of Llewelyn in only the most conventional, cautious banalities. But she did speak of her loneliness, her homesickness, spoke of the utter isolation and the cries of wolves on the wind and a forgotten fifteenth birthday.There was a great relief in sharing; hers were secret sores much in need of healing balm. But there was unease, too, once she realized just °w much she'd revealed. Isabelle was the only confidante she'd ever . ' ar>d entrusting a secret to Isabelle was rather like toting water in a Ieve- Very thankful that her tongue had not completely run away with er< that she had not betrayed the one secret that truly mattered, Joanna

223222watched as Catherine bathed Gwenifer, then turned the child over t the wet nurse for suckling. She'd always nursed her own, Catherin admitted, although the Lady Gwenllian and others mocked her for u Swould have suckled Gwenifer, too, had her fever not dried up her miixCatherine was emerging as more and more of an enigma to Joanna She was, by her own admission, not educated. She'd made a self. disparaging remark about marriage portions when their conversation had turned to Margaret Corbet andGwenwynwyn, laughing and sayirw she'd brought Rhys naught but headaches.Joanna had been distinctly taken aback; it was almost unheard of for a Norman lord to take an undowered wife. And if she was, in truth, no heiress, how in the name of Heaven had they even met, much less married?"Catherine . . . would you think me rude if I asked how you came to marry Rhys?"Catherine smiled. "I'd not mind in the least, Joanna. That is a story I never tire of telling. My first meeting with Rhys goes back some thirteen years, to the autumn of the year after King Richard was taken captive on his way home from the Holy Land. My father was bailiff on Lord Fitz Alan's manor ofMiddleton, in Shropshire. I was the youngest of six, the only girl. My mother died when I was four, and my father made rather a pet of me; so, too, did my brothers. That spring I did turn fifteen, and it was more or less understood that, come winter, I'd be wed to a neighboring knight, Sir Bernard de Nevill.He and my father were talking of a betrothal at Martinmas, a wedding afterAdvent." "Were you willing, Catherine?""I was not offered a choice, Joanna. I felt it was my duty to do as my father bade me. And it was indeed an advantageous match. Sir Bernard held his own manor of Lord Fitz Alan; I'd be lady of the manor, with my own household and servants. And since Sir Bernard had no children b his first marriage, a son of mine might one day inherit the fief; not mam second wives could say as much. Moreover, he seemed to be a good man, a devout Christian, well thought of by all. But... he was also nigh on fifty, and balding, with breath rank enough to stop a mule in its tracks. So I'd not say I was counting the days till the marriage!" "What prevented the marriage?""A sunlit September day," Catherine said and laughed. "My brother Adam was taking an oxwain into Blanc Minster, had a load ot wool skeins to deliver toWill the weaver. Blanc Minster was only three miles away, but I was never allowed into town without one of my brothers. On that particular day Adam agreed to take me along, and so' happened that I was sitting out in the oxwain at noon as Rhys rode byThe Welsh often came into Blanc Minster to trade for goods, and even111 war I never saw a merchant turn down their money. I did not kn°^(coutM,th,,^-^rs°n'ythathewaslhehand"then, of co hd to see in this lite. hened then?"^T-i^st-^^-^riSss somestmaui~:;;."He is that, Joanna agreed generously, wuai. "«rr "He drew rein right there in the street, stared at me, and when he "led II fe^ m l°ve- But then ne dismounted, and 1 realized he nt to speak to me. At that I panicked.If Adam had ever seen me IkinS with a stranger, I'd have been beaten black and blue. As for