Here Be Dragons - 1 by Sharon Penman (best ebook reader android TXT) 📗

the one constant. Taking a bath, she'd splash him with soapy water, giggling like a little girl. Or she'd look up at him over a Welsh grammar lesson, grimace and vow she'd master his tongue if it took her a lifetime. She was there to welcome him home from war, and there beside him in the night, and the seductive lure of memory was such that he would awaken in drowsy arousal, reaching for her. And then he would remember.Llewelyn took a deep swallow of malmsey. Upon his first night a Dolwyddelan, he'd been crossing the bailey, had come upon some of his soldiers squatting by the door of the great hall, passing a flask back an forth as they discussed his wife's betrayal, her lover's death. They ten* pered their abuse of Will deBraose with a grudging acknowledgment o his gallows courage, but they sparedJoanna nothing, damned her language as coarse as it was colorful. WhenLlewelyn stepped out or darkness, they scrambled to their feet, staring at him in stricken silen.1645AH save one youngster, drunker than the res*.not understand your forbearance, my lord. Yo»V blurfed out, ""I QNmust! So why have you not punished her as sK mUSt hate her now' 3"^°Aooalled. his mnrp enhm- j__ *>e deserves?" v>uAppalled, his more sober comrades m ^deserves?" sought to turn asideLlewelyn's anger with a lTHaSte to ir>terve?n* cuse. Llewelyn looked at the boy, younger eve * °f aPology and e^'*«, - ^>(- m^i^,-ust;. Ljcwciyii iuuK.eu at me ooy, younger eve>~ "h-^gv ana e^ 'his muddled way to empathize with his lord's Davydd, trying i^~be to make a scapegoat of this imprudent yout^3"1' H°W easy ft wo-uK." able and unjust. "I do not suffer fools gladly " U EaSy ^ Understa3i«^f ily for you, lad, I have more patience with d'ru S3id CUrtIy' "but ll*cl%" The soldiers did not press their luck; they scatt *lkards' Go sleeP it o^f.V"But the boy's question stayed with Hewel?^'Why had he not punished Joanna as she deserv^" m the days to corbie to

Llanfaes? Why had he made hers such a ca? Why had he sent ^eV He'd done it for Davydd's sake. That was the o£nfortable confinememt^ answer. But was it the only answer? "vious answer, the e*syxHis last memory of Joanna had yet to fade- u eyes to bring it into sudden, sharp focus, to se had °nly to dose 1~lis the rumpled sheets, even the sweat trickling dcT ^ tan&Ied dar^ hair, hollow between her breasts. That woman he cc^" ^ thr°at/ into tple woman who'd taken a Norman lover, made hi Uld hate/ and did' fi^e frayed his trust, jeopardizedDavydd's successi * Iau8hin8stock, b«soldiers had jeered; who should be surprised^"' B1°°d W'U teU' thte showed herself to be a shameless wanton?Harlo that J°hn'S daughter names. The woman who'd taken Will into his bej'Whore' Hars*, uglyBut what of the seventeen-year-old girl wndeserved them all. birth toDavydd? Or the woman who'd stood in ^ alm°St d'ed 8ivin^ with him to let her intercede with John? What chamber> pleading wrtsied to him that day atAberconwy, salvaging °f ** W°man who'cd kther for his sake? Did she, too, deserve to be call P"de' defyinS he:rLlewelyn drained the last of the wine thre Sl"t? room, watched it shatter against the wall It'was W the CUP acr°ss the ne at once regretted.Come morning, the servant^ 3Ct °f imPulse< one ^ clay shards upon the floor;they would mak^ W°Uld find the bro' ean up the wreckage with impassive facesAnd Tu"0 comment- would ^d- -miathey would not under-one ^°0nedid-Mor§an had come the closest to co . A'attempt at consolation, he'd counseled endurP e"dlng; in his.' Llewelyn, time to grieve. Try to remember ^ "Give yourself evenf T" Tan8wystl and h°w you mourned uthat Pam doe« pass.entually heal... and so will this " *er" But th* hurt did^ unf ?!!? M°rgan C°uld understand that it was.U1 unfaithful wife; few others did. But he was w?°SSlble to Srieve for0 wrong to equate Tang-

646wystl's death with Joanna's betrayal. This was a different sort of loss, and in its own way, more painful, for he'd lost more than Joanna, he'd lost their life together, too. In destroying their future, Joanna had also poisoned their past.Closing his eyes, Llewelyn lay back against the pillow. But no man could ever fully master memory. The tides ran higher at night, and he found himself engulfed without warning, carried back in time to an October afternoon, to the cloistered silence of the White Ladies Priory. Joanna was standing again before him, disheveled, breathless, a russet leaf clinging to her hair, turning up to him a face streaked with tears.Llewelyn gave a sudden, bitter laugh, for what greater irony could there be than this, that the one person able to understand exactly how he now felt should be Joanna, Joanna who'd cried out in such despair, "If he'd died, I'd still have had memories. But now even my memories are false. They do not comfort, they only torment. . .""RICHARD!" Joanna's book thudded to the floor; in three strides she was across the room, in her brother's arms. "How glad I am to see you, how very glad!" He did not return her embrace, merely patted her awkwardly on the shoulder, but he'd always been sparing with physical demonstrations of affection, and she reached up, kissed him on the cheek before stepping back to smile at him."I'm not sure what I expected, Joanna. But not this," he said, glancing about the bedchamber. "One might think you were still Princess of Gwynedd."Joanna's smile vanished; his voice was very cold. "Would you rather have found me in a dungeon at Cricieth, Richard?""Of course not," he said impatiently. "But I cannot help marveling atLlewelyn's leniency.""You've seen him, talked to him? Tell me how he is, Richard. How does he?""How do you think he does? The man loved you, Joanna.""I know," she whispered. "I know . . .""How