Llewelyn laughed suddenly. “I’ve been told that some Norman churchmen see my success as divine proof of the power of legitimacy. My father Iorwerth was a child of Owain Fawr’s first marriage; when Owain later married his cousin Crisiant, the Church refused to recognize the union, and when he would not abjure Crisiant, Thomas à Becket excommunicated him. So they see my triumph over my uncles 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 of how we end a marriage. It may always be done by mutual consent. And then, a husband may disavow his wife if she claims to be a virgin and he discovers on their wedding night that she was not, or if he finds her in compromising circumstances with another man, of course, or if her marriage portion fell short of what was promised.”
Llewelyn had been, for some moments now, playing with her hair; the feel of his fingers on her throat was so delightfully distracting to Joanna that she was not fully concentrating upon what he was saying. But at that, she smiled up at him, murmuring, “Then you do have me for better or worse, since my father handed Ellesmere Castle over to you 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 know how a wife may shed an unwanted husband? There are four grievances that will gain her freedom: if the man contracts leprosy, if he has foul breath, if he is incapable in bed…or if he does three times dishonor 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 wife discovers her husband has bedded with another woman, she has the right to demand from him payment of a gowyn—a fine, if you will—for his adultery. With his third fall from grace, she may leave him, although if she does not, she then has no further cause for complaint.”
Llewelyn paused. “There is one more reason for ending a marriage, Joanna—if a husband does ever bring another woman under his wife’s roof.”
“As you did with Cristyn?” Joanna whispered, and he nodded.
“Yes, as I did with Cristyn. Amongst our people, that is one of the three great scandals, and the wife may at once disavow the marriage, disavow the husband who has so wronged her.”
“I…I would never do that, Llewelyn.” Joanna was stunned; in her world, laws such as these were more than radical, they were revolutionary. She was silent for a time, trying to take in this astonishing new 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 she cried, “Now I do 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 listening to me, love. Did I not tell you we do not treat our women as the Normans do? Amongst my people, we do not take out our bad tempers upon our wives just because they happen to be handy. Welsh law does allow a husband the right to discipline his wife for three offenses only: if she is unfaithful, if she gambles away the family goods, or if she casts slurs upon his manhood. Should he strike her for any other reason, he is then obligated to pay her a sarhaed or honor-price.”
Joanna had been listening in astonishment. “‘A woman, a serf, and a willow tree, the more you beat them, the better they be,’” she quoted, and shook her head. “But do men truly abide by these laws, Llewelyn?”
“Not all men, love. More do than not, however. You see, an abused wife has the right to appeal to her male kinsmen for succor, and if they fail to protect her, the shame then falls upon them. Knowing a careless slap will bring down upon his head the wrath of his wife’s kin, and might even give rise to a blood feud…well, that does act to curb all but the most heedless of men.”
Llewelyn drew her still closer, and Joanna shifted so that she could pillow her head against his chest. “I begin to think the greatest gift the Almighty could give any woman would be for her to be born Welsh!”
“Or to marry a Welshman,” Llewelyn suggested, and kissed her. For Joanna, it was as it had been on that November noon at Rhosyr; she experienced again sensations exciting and unfamiliar, found her body responding to his touch like a flower starved for sun. All her senses seemed suddenly to have intensified, and when he slid his hand into the bodice of her gown, began to caress her breast, she gave a gasp, sought his mouth with hers.
Llewelyn was delighted. Brushing aside her fall of thick ebony hair, he put his lips to the pulse in her throat, with his free hand unfastening the side lacings of her bliaut. “Sweet…very sweet. I must have been well and truly out of my mind not to take you to my bed ere this,” he murmured, utterly taken aback when Joanna abruptly went rigid in his embrace, then recoiled as violently as on that day at Rhaeadr Ewynol.
For a startled moment, Llewelyn did not move, staring up at her in amazement. He could not have mistaken her willingness, the way her body warmed under his caresses. She was not merely acquiescent, she was eager. That had been no pretense, he’d wager his life on it. Yet there was no pretense, either, in the stricken look on her face, no denying her sudden fear. He could only assume he’d gone too fast, fondled her too intimately, too soon. Coming to his feet, he said, “What is it, love? You’ve no cause for fear, Joanna, not with me.”
“But you do not know what I’ve done!”
“What you’ve done?” Whatever Llewelyn might have been expecting to hear, that was not it.
On the verge of tears, Joanna nodded. “I did go to your chambers this morning to ask your forgiveness. She…Cristyn was there, and I…oh, Llewelyn, I burned your bed!”
Llewelyn bit down on his lower lip, pulled her back into his arms. “Yes, love, I know.”
“You know?” she said incredulously. “And you’re not angry?”
“Well, I’d rather you not make a habit of it.” But with that, Llewelyn’s gravity shattered into a multitude of mirthful splinters, and he laughed until he, too, was on the verge of tears.
Giddy with relief, Joanna began to laugh, too, until Llewelyn kissed her again. “Now,” he said, with a grin that caught at her heart, “ere I take you to bed, have you any other sins to confess?”
Joanna found herself longing to admit how much she loved him. But she did not, for it was not fair to burden him with a love he might never be able to return. She shook her head, looking up at him with eyes so soft and glowing, such utterly trusting eyes, that Llewelyn caught his breath.
“It will be good for you, Joanna,” he promised. “I’ll give you as much time as you need; we do have all night.”
“Do you know what Isabelle told me? That a woman will find the greatest pleasure in an older man’s bed. She says a youth of twenty or so will pounce upon a girl like a dog on a bone, will be done and dying away almost ere he begins. But a man of a more seasoned age knows well how to—in her words, not mine—mount a mare and prolong the ride!”
“I’m almost afraid to ask, but how did Isabelle come to be so worldly, so knowing in carnal matters? John gave her a crown; did she give him horns?”
“Of course not! She knows that older men make better lovers because Papa did tell her so. Llewelyn…why are you laughing at me?”
“Because I suspect, my darling, that you’re three swallows short of tipsy.”
Joanna peered into her half-empty cup of mead, trying to remember whether this was her second or third. “I believe,” she said thoughtfully, “that you might well be right. I do feel…strange.”
Llewelyn moved his hand caressingly up her thigh. “How, Joanna?”
“Feather-light, as if all the bone and marrow in my body weighed no more than gossamer, as if your arms alone did anchor me to the ea
rth.” She shivered as Llewelyn tugged at the bodice of her chemise, freeing her breasts. His breath was hot on her skin, and she watched with fascination as her nipples swelled, became hard and taut. “Oh, Llewelyn, love, you’re right, I am tipsy! What I do not know is whether it is the mead, or whether it is you.”
“Let’s find out,” he said, and when she put her arms around his neck, he lifted her from the settle, carried her across the chamber to the bed.
Llewelyn had never before understood the appeal virgins had for other men, had always looked upon a woman’s maidenhead as more of an impediment to pleasure than a proof of purity. But now, with Joanna, he found that virginity need not be embarrassing or inhibiting, that it could even be enhancing. There was something very exciting in Joanna’s wonderment, in her surprise and her satisfaction. As she sighed, twisted against him, he knew she was experiencing sensations utterly new to her, experiencing all the urgency and pleasure that the body could give—for the very first time. To diminish her pain and prolong their enjoyment, he sought to keep physical needs under mental thrall, making use of all the tricks he’d learned in the twenty years since he had, as an awed fourteen-year-old, discovered how sweet the fruits of the flesh could be, drawing out their lovemaking until he dared delay no longer. She stiffened under him, but did not cry out, and he felt the barrier give way with his second thrust. Joanna was gasping his name. He covered her mouth with his own, and she clung tightly, then turned her head from side to side on the pillow, shuddering, all but blinding them both with the wild tossing of her hair. Yielding to his own need, he let it take him toward satisfaction, toward that ephemeral moment of release, so fleeting and yet so overwhelming in its intensity, in its peculiar union of pleasure and pain.
Joanna awoke with an enormous thirst, a dull headache, and a profound sense of wonder. Alison at once approached the bed, offering a cup of watered-down wine. Reaching for it eagerly, Joanna drank in grateful gulps. “What time is it?” she yawned, and winced, for she’d suddenly discovered that her thigh muscles were stiff and sore.
“Nigh on noon, Madame. My lord Prince said we were to let you sleep, and to give you this.” Holding out an unsealed parchment.
This speaker was a stranger to Joanna, was a slender young woman with a delicate heart-shaped face and thick chestnut braids. “Who,” Joanna asked, “are you?”
The girl made a shy curtsy. “I am Branwen, Madame. Lord Llewelyn wanted you to have a handmaiden who spoke French, thought I might suit you better than Enid. I would have been here yesterday to welcome you back, but we did not expect you for nigh on a fortnight. That will not happen again, I promise.”
“That is all right, Branwen,” Joanna said absently. Llewelyn’s message was a letdown, a brief two lines: “Cariad, I do have to meet again with the Bishops in Bangor, will be back by dark.” No more than that, unsigned but for a large scrawling double 1.
“Branwen…what does cariad mean?”
“Cariad? Why, that is Welsh for ‘beloved,’ Madame,” she said, and Joanna sank back, smiling, upon the pillow.
Never had an afternoon passed with such excruciating slowness. Never had Joanna so begrudged daylight its domain. But with the coming of dusk had come, too, the snow. Joanna’s spirits plummeted. When it was evident even to her that Llewelyn was not going to return in time for dinner, if he returned at all, she went off to preside over a glum meal in the great hall. The snow slackened somewhat as the evening dragged on, and twice the arrival of latecomers sent her flying to the window, watching hopefully as they dismounted in the bailey. The third time horsemen rode in, she did not even bother to look, having at last accepted the obvious, that Llewelyn had decided to pass the night in Bangor. But then Alison exclaimed, “Madame, I see lights in your lord’s chambers!”
Joanna’s excitement was contagious, and Alison and Branwen enthusiastically set about making her ready for Llewelyn, brushing out her hair, applying strategic daubs of perfume. Looking into the mirror Alison held up, Joanna was, for once, pleased with what she saw. Her eyes reflected the color of her moss-green gown, and she was becomingly flushed, a flush that seemed to be spreading through her entire body, the throbbing, languid warmth that claimed her each time she let herself think upon their lovemaking.
“My lady…” Alison turned slowly from the window. Not looking at Joanna’s face, she said, “The lights…they’ve gone out.”
Joanna put the mirror down. “Of course,” she said steadily. “I did not stop to think; after a ride in such foul weather, my lord husband would be exhausted, in truth.” But the reasonableness of that did little to ease her hurt. Could he not at least have come in to bid her good night?
Once in bed, she found it difficult to sleep. The memories of what she and Llewelyn had done last night in this bed were too vivid, too real. At last she dozed, only to be awakened with a shock, with the feel of an icy breath against her cheek. Llewelyn was sitting on the bed, shook snow onto them both as he leaned over to embrace her.
“Not even a lantern left in the window for me, and sound asleep in the bargain,” he complained, caressing her all the while with his eyes, and Joanna, fully awake now, threw herself into his arms.
“I thought you came back hours ago, had gone to bed!”
Llewelyn grinned, started to remind her of the burned bed, but something eager and innocent in her face stopped him, and he said instead, “Now why ever would I want to sleep alone when I could sleep with you?”
Alison and Branwen had discreetly disappeared. Joanna sat up, reached for her bedrobe. “Where are your squires?”
“I sent them off to bed, thought I might persuade you to offer a hand.”
Joanna was as compulsively neat as Llewelyn was not, and she snatched up his mantle and tunic almost before they hit the floor, folded them conscientiously across a coffer chest. By now he was pulling off his shirt, and she gave a concerned cry. “No! Over by the fire, or you’ll catch your death of cold.”
“I do not recall you caring where I undressed last night,” he said, and Joanna blushed and then laughed.
“To tell you true, I do not even remember undressing last night,” she confessed, kneeling before him to help unfasten the cords binding his chausses to his braies. “It just seemed to…happen.” He smiled down at her, and marveling how her body’s needs suddenly seemed to exist independently of her conscious control, she reached for the nearest cord, saw that Llewelyn’s passions were kindled as quickly as her own. Her touch had been light, inadvertent, but as her fingers brushed his upper thigh, his reaction was immediate, pronounced.
“Women are lucky,” she teased shyly, “for they can hide their desire so much more easily than can men,” and Llewelyn laughed.
“Who wants to hide it?” he said, and stripped off his chausses and braies. Joanna had often seen naked men, as a child had occasionally entered John’s bedchamber as he was dressing, had assisted Ela in bathing more than one highborn guest at Salisbury Castle, had passed serfs bathing in the river in summer. She’d long ago mastered that which was essential in a society so lacking in privacy: the elusive art of seeing and yet not seeing. Now, however, she let her eyes linger upon her husband’s body. He was taller than most Welshmen, his the lean, wiry strength of stamina rather than of muscle and sinew. He had an insignificant amount of chest hair, his skin dark and smooth, marred only by the scars of old wounds, scars that now took on a new and sinister significance to Joanna, one tracking across his ribcage, another angled toward his collar bone, a third slanting in a thin white line from his pubic hair down his thigh. Joanna reached out, traced its path with gentle fingers.
“That must have been a frightening injury.”
“That, my darling, was not the half of it!” he said wryly. “There is nothing like a groin wound to make a man repent his sinful past.” He did then what Joanna had wanted him to do all along, put his hand on hers, showed her how best to give a man pleasure.
It was to Joanna enormously gratifying, to find that Llew
elyn wanted her caresses and kisses even as much as she wanted his. “It is easy to understand how people came to use the term ‘manhood,’” she said, rather breathlessly, but how explain ‘privy member’?”
“How explain any of them, Joanna: cock, shaft, codpiece, pizzle, sword? And in Welsh: bonllost, gwialen, cal…and those are just the polite terms.”
“Bonllost,” she echoed, amused by the unfamiliar phrasing, and then began to giggle. “I do hope none of our children ever ask me which Welsh word I did learn first!” Llewelyn had taken her into a closer embrace; she could feel his hands under her bedrobe, and she sighed, said softly, “I think, though, that I shall call it Merlin, in honor of the miracles it did work last night.”
Llewelyn laughed, and drew her toward the bed. “And I begin to think,” he said, “that I do owe the English King a far greater debt than I first realized.”
“Llewelyn…whilst we were making love, you did call me breila. What does that mean?”
“A breila is a dusky wild rose. It does suit you, I think.”
Joanna was touched almost to tears. “Breila…that’s lovely.” She lay back against him, cradled her head in the crook of his shoulder. “I know I was a disappointment to you at first, but…”
“Disappointment?” Llewelyn raised himself up on one elbow, saw with surprise that she was neither teasing nor fishing for flattery. “Has no one ever told you, Joanna, that you’re beautiful?”
Now it was Joanna’s turn to doubt him. “No,” she said at last, “but when I was about twelve, I do remember hearing Maude de Braose say I looked verily like a Saracen.”
“Who in Christ cares what Maude de Braose thinks?” Llewelyn reached for a long strand of Joanna’s hair, pulled it across his throat. “If Saracen women do indeed have hair like black silk, eyes like emeralds, and blood hotter than Greek fire, little wonder men are so eager to take the cross, to reach the Holy Land.”