Here Be Dragons - 1

this very river, his plas at Carreghova besieged by a man who was Llewelyn's own first cousin, Gwenwynwyn, Prince of southern Powys. He forgot his mother's tears, forgot his stepfather's ambitious plans for his future, forgot all but the here and now.He'd walked these woods so often in memory, hearing the rustle of woodmice and squirrels, the warning cries of overhead birds, sentinels ever on the alert for the intrusion of man into their domain. A fox come to the river to drink was slow to heed the alert and froze at sight of Llewelyn, muzzle silvered with crystal droplets of river water, black eyes bright as polished jet. Boy and fox stared at one another in rapt silence, and then Llewelyn snapped his fingers, freeing the fox to vanish into the shadows as if by sorcery; not a twig cracked, not a leaf rustled to mark its passing. Llewelyn laughed and walked on.He felt no surprise when he broke through a clearing in the wood and came upon the boys by the river; somehow he'd known that he would find them here. TheVyrnwy had always been their favorite fishing stream.Shyness was an alien emotion to Llewelyn, but he found himself suddenly ensnared by it now, reluctant to approach the youths who'd once been like his brothers. They were not talking, theirs the companionable silence born of the intimacy of blood and a bonding that had begun in the cradle. Watching them, Llewelyn felt an unexpected emotion stir, one closely akin to envy. He belonged here, too, fishing on the banks of the Vyrnwy with Ednyved and Rhys, but how to surmount the barriers built up by four years of English exile?They were lounging on the grass in positions as characteristic as they were familiar: Rhys sitting upright, utterly intent upon the trout to be hooked, Ednyved sprawled on his back in the sun, fishing po'e wedged into a pyramid of piled-up rocks. And as ever, Llewelyn found
25himself marveling that two boys so unlike could share the same blood. First cousins they were, but none seeing them together would ever have guessed the kinship.Rhys shared with Llewelyn the pitch-black hair so common to their people, but while Llewelyn's eyes were dark, too, Rhys had the eyes of a Welsh mountain cat, purest, palest green. His unusual coloring, thick sable lashes, and features so symmetrical as to draw all eyes were, for him, a burden rather than a blessing. He loathed being fussed over, and yet his startling beauty of face doomed him to be forever fending off the eushing compliments and effusive embraces of his doting female relatives, who considered him quite the handsomest male child ever born and took great pride in showing him off to mothers and aunts of less favored youngsters, to Rhys's utter disgust and the vast amusement of his friends.It was possible to look upon his beautyfor there was no other word for itand to note his slightness of build and conclude that there was a softness, a fragility about the boy. That was, Llewelyn had long ago learned, an impression so erroneous as to be utterly ludicrous, and not a little dangerous. Rhys was as hard, as unyielding as the flint of his native land;there was no give in him, none at all.As for Ednyved, in all honesty he could only be described as homely. Lanky brown hair, deepset eyes of a nondescript color that was neither brown nor hazel but a murky shade somewhere in between, a mouth too wide and chin too thrusting, too prominent. Big-boned even as a small boy, he seemed to have sprouted up at least a foot since Llewelyn had seen him last, and Llewelyn had no doubts that when fully grown, Ednyved would tower head and shoulders above other men.As he watched, Llewelyn suddenly found himself remembering a childhood game he'd long ago liked to play with his mother, in which they sought to identify people with their animal counterparts. Llewelyn had promptly pleased his sleekly independent and unpredictable mother by categorizing her as a cat.Hugh, whom he liked, he saw as an Irish wolfhound, a dog as bright as it was even-tempered. Robert Corbet, whom he did not like, he dubbed another sort of dog altogether, the courageous but muddleheaded mastiff. Morgan, too, was easy to classify, for Morgan was a priest with the soul of a soldier, a man who'd chosen of his own free will to fetter his wilder instincts to the stringent disciplines of his Church. Morgan, Llewelyn had explained to Marared, could only be a falcon, for the falcon was the most predatory of birds, a pnnce of the skies that could nonetheless be tamed to hunt at man's command. Adda, too, was a bird, a caged sparrow hawk, tethered to earth whilst his spirit pined only to fly; when he'd told his mother that,
26tears had filled her eyes. But when she wanted to know how he saw himself, Llewelyn grew reticent, evasive. From the day she'd taken him to the Tower ofLondon to see the caged cats, he'd known what animal he wanted to claim as his own, the tawny-maned lion, but that was a vanity he was not willing to confess, even to his mother.He had never tried to characterize Rhys or Ednyved, but it came to him now without need for reflection, for Rhys had the unpredictable edginess of a high-strung stallion and Ednyved all the latent power, the massive strength and lazy good humor of the tame bear he'd seen at London's Smithfield Fair.Ednyved yawned and stretched, reaching for the woven sack that lay beside their bait pail. He shook several apples out onto the grass, tossed one toRhys."I daresay you want one, too, Llewelyn?" he asked nonchalantly and, without looking up, sent an apple sailing through the air. It was remarkably accurate for a blind pitch, landing just where Llewelyn had been standing seconds before. He was no longer there, however, having recoiled with such vehemence that