Rhiannon (20 page)

“No. Get back now, and hear what Richard says. If he is
willing to parley, do nothing. Only send word if he will not receive us.”

There was no question of that. Simon was told that Richard
wished to speak to him as soon as he reentered Usk, and after he was assured
that Simon’s fears for Geoffrey had been groundless, he listened eagerly to
Simon’s news. Far from being reluctant, he was impatient to receive Henry’s
embassy and, when they came two days later, showed them all the courtesy in his
power. Simon, of course, took no part in the negotiations. He was very junior
both in status and in years to the others, and he was not even Richard’s
vassal. However, he was well informed by Geoffrey.

On the surface it was not an unreasonable proposal. To save
the king’s pride, Richard was to yield Usk to him on the specific agreement
that it would be returned intact and undamaged in fifteen days. In return, the
king pledged himself to “make all necessary reformations in the kingdom”. On
the Sunday after Michaelmas, all the parties were to meet at Westminster to
discuss what reformation was necessary and to take the proper steps toward it.
The bishops and Geoffrey were securities for the king.

Richard was very happy. He felt that the yielding of his
castle for two weeks was a small price to pay to achieve all his other
objectives. He was prepared to bend his knee and say he was deeply sorry to
have offended his overlord. It was true! He was sorry, and he had none of the
false pride that would prohibit such an admission. He would not say his purpose
was wrong; he still intended to achieve that purpose, but he would be very glad
to do so by yielding and persuasion rather than by force.

The bishops were also happy. Theoretically the Church did
not approve of war between Christians, although there were exceptions to this
rule. In this case practical reasons reinforced theological doctrine. There
could be no profit to the Church in the continuation of this conflict.
Truthfully, few of the bishops liked Peter des Roches any better than the
barons liked him, and they saw no advantage in his ascendancy over the king. It
was their intention to support Richard’s demand that the king reconstitute and
consult a council of barons and bishops as required in the Great Charter.

Geoffrey was hopeful rather than happy. The eagerness with
which Richard had responded and his willingness to agree to the king’s terms
had pleased Henry. The king was no longer talking about halters around his
vassal’s neck. Moreover, Henry had been quite sharp in his speech with the
bishop these last days. Perhaps the wily Winchester would take warning from
that and lean more toward moderation and conciliation. Geoffrey did not think
Winchester had abandoned his purpose any more than Richard had abandoned his,
but he believed that political intrigue was far less dangerous to the nation at
large than open war.

Philip Bassett was furious. Although he, his brother, and
all their adherents had been included in the truce and were to be parties in
the conference on October ninth, he said openly that Richard was a fool to
trust the king. Henry had no intention of returning Usk to Richard, he claimed.
This truce was only a device to gain a better foothold in south Wales from
which more devastating attacks could be launched, and anyone foolish enough to
leave the protection of his own lands and appear at Westminster would soon find
himself lodged in the Tower with no way out—if he did not find himself shorter
by a head. Others of Richard’s adherents hushed Bassett, pointing out that
Richard was in no mood to listen, but the castellan of Usk looked very
thoughtful.

The next day, when orders were given to vacate the keep so
that Henry’s men could take it over, Simon went to say farewell to the
castellan’s son, who had been a pleasant companion during idle hours. He could
not find him. Fortunately, before he asked for him, Simon noticed that a number
of the men in the castellan’s troop did not know how to fasten their armor and
that the weapons they bore were rusted and battered and broken. Simon shut his
mouth hard and hastened away, telling his own troop to mingle with that of the
castellan and help them and, if they could, hide the deficiencies of the serfs
pretending to be men-at-arms.

Perhaps it was not honorable to the letter of the truce for
the castellan to have left his son and most of the peacetime garrison of Usk in
the keep disguised as servingmen. However, Simon was in perfect accord with
him. If the king kept his word, no harm would be done. The castellan’s son and
his men-at-arms would hew wood, draw water, and have an unpleasant two or three
weeks of hard labor. If the king broke his word, on the other hand, it would be
his
violation of the agreement that caused the harm. When Richard
returned and attacked Usk to recover it, there would be no long siege or bloody
battle. The castellan’s son and his men would throw off their disguises,
unearth their weapons, and open Usk to its rightful master.

Simon was delighted as he rode north with his men. He had
lingered behind the others long enough to send off his letter to Sybelle and,
incidentally, to be sure that the castellan’s ruse was not discovered. Once he was
on the road, he made the very best speed he could, expecting he would have to
ride all the way to Aber or Caernarvon. Hardly had he passed Abergavenny and
plunged into the valley that ran west of Ysgyryd Fawr, however, than a
messenger came leaping down the flank of the hill and hailed him. Prince
Llewelyn was at Builth, he said, and bade him come there with his news. Simon
was overjoyed.

It was rather late when they arrived at Builth, but Llewelyn
was awake and waiting for him. News of the “surrender” of Usk had flown over
the mountains and up the valleys by relays of swift runners, and the prince had
guessed that Simon would not linger after Richard was gone. Although he had
been in the saddle for hours, Simon gladly went to his overlord. He was eager to
know what Llewelyn would make of the terms of the truce. Besides that, the
sooner he had told the prince everything he knew, guessed, and even hoped, the
sooner he would be free to go to Rhiannon.

Since the truce had been proposed, Simon’s thoughts had turned
from the arts of war to the arts of love. He had gone over and over that last
day’s happenings, from finding Rhiannon in the woods to the final, soft, “Fare
thee well.” Unfortunately, the events showed him no clear path. He was puzzled
and hurt by Rhiannon’s doubt of him and of herself. In some ways Simon was very
innocent despite his many sexual liaisons. Simplistically, he accounted all the
women who yielded to him as bad. He acknowledged that, in many cases, their
husbands did not deserve chaste or loving wives. Nonetheless, the woman who
violated her vows was at fault—the Church said so, men said so, it must be so.

It was very easy for Simon to be positive on this subject.
His mother had never violated her vows, nor had his sister Joanna, nor his sister-by-marriage,
Gilliane—and the latter two were both superbly beautiful and he knew had been
importuned by men in high places. He did not connect the behavior of the wives
with the very obvious devotion of the husbands, although he knew that Ian, Geoffrey,
and Adam had never taken a mistress and that the first two did not even use
whores when they were separated from their wives. Probably, Simon thought, he
would be like Adam, who relieved his sexual urge as he would relieve his
bladder or bowels, but surely Rhiannon did not mean that—or did she?

Rhiannon was strange and did not think like other people.
Still, he could not understand her doubts. To his mind, “everyone knew” that
the men of Roselynde did not look elsewhere once their affections were fixed.
Having achieved the goal of nearly fifteen years of longing, Ian truly had no
desire for any woman other than Alinor. Geoffrey had been soured very young by
a licentious court; he was no womanizer by nature and was too fascinated by the
bright, exquisite “sun” of his life to think of deceiving Joanna. Adam loved
his soft, seemingly submissive Gilliane, but he was no fool; he was aware of
how often things went the way Gilliane desired rather than the way he had
planned. He trusted his wife—yes—but he had no desire at all to give her a
reason not to trust him. He had not forgotten that she had pushed her second
husband out of a high window of Tarring keep.

What had begun quite naturally had hardened over the years
into a fierce pride, partly as a result of ribald comment by other men and
regretful admiration of women. The men of Roselynde might play in their youth,
but once they chose a woman they were as faithful to the vows of matrimony as
they were to their oaths of homage. Simon had been born into this atmosphere
and had grown to manhood in it. He could not understand Rhiannon’s doubts, and
he wished he could talk over the problem with someone.

As he entered Llewelyn’s presence, Simon wondered whether
the prince could help him, but he remembered that Rhiannon’s father had told
him from the beginning that he did not understand his daughter. Simon hesitated
and smiled. Rhiannon’s father might not understand her, but her mother… What a
fool he had been. Perhaps he could find out from Kicva what was wrong.

“You bear good tidings?”

Llewelyn’s voice snapped Simon back to the present, and he
came forward quickly and bowed. “They are not ill, but whether good or not, I
cannot say. I hope you will be better able to interpret them than I, my lord.”

“I hope so too,” Llewelyn said dryly. “It is not every day
that a starving army, thrown back with heavy losses from an assault and plainly
unable to maintain the siege or win the keep by attack, suddenly walks into it
without a blow struck.”

Simon grinned. “Put like that, it does sound odd, but there
was reason in it.” He then explained fully the terms of the truce, ending, “Do
you think the king will keep his word, my lord?”

For some time Llewelyn did not answer. His bright, dark eyes
stared at nothing. Then he sighed. “I know men, and in a long life I have
learned to judge them well, but I cannot answer your question, Simon. No matter
what his years, Henry is not a man; he is still a child. Children have bright
dreams of what they will be. For most, these dreams are limited by what they
are. A serf child does not dream of being a king—but he can dream of being a
man-at-arms or a freeholder of his land. A woman cannot dream of being a brave
knight, but she can desire many children, or none, or to rule her husband by
stealth or by beauty. But to a child-king’s dreams, there are no limits.”

“Do you mean that Henry has always desired to grind his
barons into dust?”

“Not at all.” Llewelyn looked sidelong at Simon and smiled a
secret smile. “That is a baron’s way of putting it,” he said gently. “A king
might call it being able to govern without being torn ten ways by different
parties with different interests. However, if that
were
true, I could
guess very well what Henry would do. No, that is not his dream.”

“Then what does he desire?”

“A different wish each day or week or month. That is what I
was starting to say to you. For most children one dream becomes fixed as the
child grows into a man or a woman. It may sprout odd shoots, but those shoots
are fixed to the first stem of the dream. Henry, alas, has never grown into a
man. Sometimes he dreams of being a builder of beautiful things; sometimes he
dreams of being a great conqueror and of winning back all that his father lost
and more; sometimes he dreams of being as powerful as God, sometimes of being
as merciful as Mary, good as a saint, bountiful and magnanimous so that all
will love him.”

Simon cocked his head. “My father always said that—I mean,
that Henry desired to be loved because his mother and father did not love him.”

“Ian is too soft to judge men well, but in this case he may
be right. He may, indeed, be right. Nonetheless, it does not help, for at one
moment Henry seeks to enforce love through power and the next seeks to win it
by generosity, and—to the misfortune and confusion of his subjects—it is mostly
impossible to guess which side of him will show.” He shook his head. “We can
only wait and see. At least his next move will not fall upon me. There will be
time to prepare. So what will you do now, Simon?”

“With your leave, my lord, I will go to Angharad’s Hall,”
Simon said eagerly.

Llewelyn smiled. “Still pursuing? You have not grown weary?”

“I will never grow weary. If I do not succeed, I will take
no wife. There is no need. I have nephews enough to serve as heirs, and they
are all good boys.”

“You are set on this, Simon? Really set?” Llewelyn’s smile
was gone.

“I will give oath to you—in blood if you will.”

“Hmmm. I had better write to your father, then, and to Kicva
also. Do you wish to know with what I will dower her?”

“It is not needful, my lord. I am not such a fool as to say
I do not care. I do care. But you know what lands I have, and I am sure it will
be in your interest as well as in mine to dower Rhiannon with what will march
well. I will leave it to your wisdom and your generosity, my lord.”

Llewelyn burst out laughing. “Very clever. I especially like
the inclusion of the words
wisdom
and
generosity
. They should
certainly encourage me in the direction you want me to lean.”

Simon laughed too. “But my lord, what do you want me to say?
You have always been generous to me, and even your enemies say you are wise. I
cannot help it if I sound like an idle flatterer. Would it be better to tell a
lie rudely or be sullenly silent?”

“Go,” Llewelyn said with raised brows. “You are
incorrigible! Go to bed and then, if you will, to Angharad’s Hall. But if you
do not remain there for any reason, come back to me. There will be strong
stirrings in Henry’s court one way or another, and I might need ears or a mouth
there.”