Rhiannon (27 page)

“In the long distance, only the king will have power,”
Geoffrey pointed out bleakly. “Most will not see the end to which this will
lead and will pay the scutage gladly. You know that the cost of service is
always more than the scutage, although it does not offer the compensation of
loot. But I am sure Winchester will find a way to restrict the loot a knight
may take. Knight service will die because those who persist in keeping their
men armed will be always the target of the king’s spite and attack. With the
ending of knight service, our ability to resist the king’s will or even to
defend ourselves against our neighbors will die also. If a wrong is done us, we
will need to cry to the king to send his mercenaries to protect us.”

There was a silence while everyone contemplated this horror.
Rhiannon alone was not affected. She looked from face to face with puzzlement.
Knight service was not really the foundation of power in Wales, although
Llewelyn had incorporated some of its concepts into his rule. Armies were still
generated on a blood or clan basis, and, to a certain extent, these armies were
all mercenary. They expected to be maintained and rewarded directly by the
leader who had called them, either with loot from the enemy or with treasure from
the leader’s store.

The word
scutage
—payment in money instead of time of
fighting service—did not even have meaning to Rhiannon; such a practice did not
yet exist in her country. She had listened to the conversation very closely,
although she said nothing. The high emotional content of what was said was
clear even if she could not understand the cause. One thing, however, she did
understand, and everyone seemed to have overlooked this obvious point.

“But,” Rhiannon’s voice was like a pure bell tone in the
heavy silence, “you are all accounting a victory by the king’s mercenaries a
sure thing. How is this possible? They could not defeat Pembroke last month,
even with the assistance of some of the barons and when the earl was not
willing to attack.”

Simon was the first to laugh, and the reaction spread
swiftly from one to another around the table. Rhiannon’s eyebrows rose, but
Simon embraced her, crying, “
Eneit
,
eneit
, you are as wise as you
are beautiful, and we are a gaggle of silly geese, sitting here afrighting
ourselves by our own honking.”

Geoffrey’s smile diminished. “The case is not so desperate
as I made out,” he said, “but there is something to fear. Some twenty years ago
Lord Llewelyn was defeated by our using his own tactics against him. King John
ordered that all be burnt before and behind as we went. Each town and village
was laid waste utterly, and the land and forest also. Winchester was close to
John in those days. Perhaps he also remembers.”

Now it was Rhiannon’s turn to grow rigid with fear. She had
been less than five years old the summer of that bitter defeat, but she
remembered it as a time of horror. Llewelyn had fled to Angharad’s Hall when
all seemed hopeless. No army had followed him there, and they had not been
attacked nor suffered directly. Nonetheless, for the first time in her happy
life, Rhiannon had been surrounded by a pall of grief and bitterness and
impotent rage. Sensitive as she was, she had never forgotten it.

Simon put an arm around her. “That must not happen, and I
think it will not. This time Richard must have his craw full of insult and
treachery. I believe he will be ready to attack as well as defend. I am almost
sure, also, that Prince Llewelyn will make alliance with Richard.”

“You must warn him, Simon,” Rhiannon urged eagerly.

“Oh, I will, dear heart,” Simon agreed, “but there is no
hurry about it. For one thing, I am not sure your father needs telling. This
may have been in his mind from the beginning. For another, the king cannot move
against Richard until after October ninth, when the conference is set. Until
then, he cannot be sure that Richard will not come in person to protest the
failure to hold the conditions of the truce. Then he must send out his summons.
Do not fret yourself, there will be time enough.”

“Yes, and I think it very important that you engage the
king’s friendship,” Geoffrey said.

A look of strong distaste passed over Rhiannon’s face.

“Do not blame Henry too much for this, my dear,” Alinor
said. “He is easily led to unwise enthusiasms, I am afraid, but he is not evil.
The blame really should rest on Winchester. He should know the men of this
realm better.”

“There I cannot agree with you,” Joanna remarked dryly. “I
fear that Winchester knows the barons of England very well indeed, and has
devised this incredible lunacy because he despairs of ever bringing them to
agree on
anything.
”

“My dearling Joanna,” Ian exclaimed, his expression changing
from depression to surprise, “that is just what he said to me when I spoke to
him in June—and I did not really listen! He is wrong, very wrong in what he is
doing, but now I see he means well, not ill. It lay most heavily on my heart
that a man I knew so long and respected should seem to change into a monster.
He thinks that when the barons are powerless the realm will be at peace—yes! He
said that also.”

“And that is what he has convinced Henry to believe.”
Geoffrey also looked relieved. “He may even be right,” Geoffrey added
thoughtfully. “If there were no power in the land but the king’s, it might
bring peace.”

“Graves are also peaceful,” Adam growled, “but I have no
particular wish to inhabit one.”

Geoffrey smiled at this sardonic reminder. “Well, I agree to
that, and Winchester must not be allowed to accomplish his purpose. But,
Rhiannon, I assure you if we removed Winchester’s influence, Henry would soon
lose interest in the bishop’s ideas. My cousin is not at all warlike at heart.”

“No, he is not,” Ian said. “He is a man of strong
affections, which is why Winchester has had so easy a conquest. He was one of Henry’s
guardians when the king was a child. Partly owing to his close association with
King John, he was not well liked and was pushed out as de Burgh gained
ascendency. Naturally, when Henry began to resent de Burgh, he turned to
Winchester.”

“It will be worse soon,” Walter said. “I have heard that
Winchester seeks control of Devizes. That is what I came to tell you all before
I was drawn into the other matter. I fear that if Peter des Roches becomes de
Burgh’s warder, de Burgh will die.”

Geoffrey uttered an obscenity, which startled everyone
because it was most unlike him to use such crudities. However, he made no
direct comment on Walter’s news except a warning glance at him. Instead, he
looked at Rhiannon.

“We have not really strayed from the need to win Henry’s
friendship. As Lady Alinor said, the king is easily led; as Ian said, he is a
man of strong emotions; as Walter implied, he is spiteful. If you can gain his
affection and esteem, Rhiannon, it may be that you can turn aside his spite
from your father and point it in the right direction—toward Winchester.”

“I see it,” Rhiannon sighed, “but I am the last person to be
useful for such a purpose. Simon will tell you that I am not the softest-spoken
woman in the world, nor the most tactful.”

“Anyone who can deal with Math can deal with Henry,” Simon
said, grinning. “Fix it in your mind that the king is a two-legged Math with
more self-love and less common sense, and all will go well.”

Rhiannon burst out laughing while Simon explained Math to
the others. There was only the most halfhearted protest from Geoffrey and Ian,
but Gilliane did not join the others in their smiles and laughing objections.

“But Simon is perfectly right,” Gilliane said seriously.
“Henry is just like a cat. I never thought of it before, but it is so. He loves
to be praised. He enjoys being stroked—when it is convenient for him. He loves
to be kind—when it does not inconvenience him. He is quite clever about
anything he desires and is deaf, dumb, and blind to anything he regards as unpleasant.
And he can be quite vicious when he is displeased, even to those he loves.”

Gilliane’s serious analysis drew another round of laughter,
but it was of enormous help to Rhiannon when she met Henry the next afternoon.
Since she did not feel the same repugnance over a broken truce as did the
others, her understanding of the king and her fear of making a misstep with him
were, respectively, enhanced and reduced. To her eyes, the suggestion Gilliane
had made was confirmed by sight of Henry. There was something catlike in the
way he lounged against the cushions of his chair—an inordinate love of physical
comfort—and in the rather blank stare of his blue eyes, to which the drooping
lid of one eye gave a measure of slyness.

By the time Rhiannon reached his chair of state, the king
was no longer lounging. A pool of silence had moved with her and her
escorts—Ian to her right and Simon to her left—as they came up the long room
toward Henry. She wore the black dress and the jeweled mesh to hold back her
hair, which hung loose to her knees, and she walked the long passage between
the staring courtiers with the grace of a doe and the proud bearing of a queen.

“My lord king,” Ian said formally when they reached Henry
and Rhiannon sank into a deep curtsy, “in accordance with your gracious
permission, I make bold to present you to my son Simon’s betrothed wife,
Rhiannon uerch Llewelyn.”

“Goodness gracious,” Henry exclaimed, smiling broadly, “had
I known what Llewelyn was hiding, I would have come seeking it myself. You are
a most fortunate man, Simon. Oh, rise, do rise, Lady Rhiannon. No need to hold
that silly pose. Forgive me. I was so astonished at your loveliness.”

Rhiannon stood upright and smiled. It was utterly impossible
not to do so. What might have been an offensive leer was the simplest
expression of surprised friendliness. The voice also was warm, unaffected,
open. Rhiannon suddenly became aware why, after all the harsh things were said
and all the hard plans were made to thwart him, nearly everyone who knew him defended
the king. There was great sweetness, great charm in him.

Henry’s admiration was as innocent as it was sincere.
Obviously he was a man who could enjoy beauty for its own sake without desiring
to touch or possess it. Had she been as exquisite as the moon or the sun,
Rhiannon knew she would also have been as untouchable in Henry’s mind.

“Thank you, my lord,” she murmured. “My father assured me
you would receive me kindly.”

“Oh, did he?” Henry laughed. “Well, Lord Llewelyn knows I
have a great admiration for beauty.”

“So he does, my lord, and he sent to you two gifts, not of
great worth, perhaps, but most curious.”

With the words, Rhiannon handed over a broach for fastening
a cloak, and a belt buckle, both of the same pattern. Each showed the lion and
the lamb lying down together in peace. In terms of a gift from one ruler to
another, the two pieces were of little value, there being no mass of gold or
fine, large gems. But the work was very old, very cunningly wrought, the lion
in gold, with a deeply carved curly mane and eyes of topaz, and the lamb of
silver so delicately worked that one could almost swear the fleece was real.

Henry’s eyes showed his appreciation of the beauty of the
pieces. He handled the broach and buckle almost reverently. “I do not agree as
to the little worth,” he said. “These are precious things. The skill that made
them does not come often to a man’s hands. Two fine gifts, indeed.”

“That is only one of the gifts,” Rhiannon said. “The other
needs some time to deliver. It is a song.”

“There is time now,” Henry replied instantly, with lively
expectation. “Let us have the singer in at once.”

“The singer is in, my lord.” Rhiannon smiled at him. “I need
only my harp and, if you will give me leave to sit, a stool, for I must hold
the harp in my lap.”

She sang a song of Culhwch and Olwen, whose tale reached
back into the mists of time when men drank the sea, ran on the tips of grass
without bending it, and held their breaths for nine days and nine nights. It
told of the
geas
Culhwch’s stepmother set upon him to marry Olwen,
daughter of Ysbaddaden, Chief Giant, and of the feats of magic and mystery
Culhwch and his companions performed to win her. There was grief and laughter
in it and great heroism, but Rhiannon had chosen it because Culhwch, who was
obviously Welsh, was accepted by King Arthur as his first cousin.

Rhiannon had considered her repertory very carefully, and
decided that
Culhwch and Olwen
was best. The song started with a rather
aggressive passage between Arthur and Culhwch and ended in complete amity.
Rhiannon thought this song best conveyed the ideas she wanted Henry to absorb.

Whether her performance would eventually produce the desired
effect, Rhiannon was not sure. The initial success was overwhelming. Henry was
so moved that he rose from his chair to come down and kiss her, but that
appreciation was completely emotional and technical. He had not really thought
about the story or what it could mean, only about the beauty of the sound.

As the afternoon wore away to evening, it became apparent
that Rhiannon’s careful planning had been wasted. She probably could have sung
Branwen,
Daughter of Llyr
, which had violent anti-English feeling, without producing
a political effect in the king. This both enchanted and annoyed her, for the artist
in Henry had totally supplanted the king. He did not think about the meaning of
anything, nor even about the fact that Llewelyn’s daughter might well have
business for her father in hand. All Henry could think of was Rhiannon’s art.

He wanted to know everything; when and where she learned,
where the songs came from, who had translated them into French from the Welsh.
He listened intently, and her answers generated more questions. He examined her
harp minutely and reverently, recognizing at once its great age and that it was
a masterwork even finer than the broach and buckle that Llewelyn had sent him.