Here Be Dragons - 1

he bumped bruisingly into the nearest tree. Rhys, no less startled, spun around so precipitantly that he overturned the bait pail, and, as he cursed and Llewelyn took several deep breaths, trying to get his pulse rate back to normal, Ednyved rolled over in the grass and laughed and laughed."How in hellfire did you know I was there?" Llewelyn demanded, and Ednyved feigned surprise."How could I not, with you making enough noise to bestir the dead? Is that theEnglish style of woodland warfare?"He'd always been a lethal tease, and Llewelyn was not normally thin-skinned.But they'd not yet established the boundaries of their new relationship.Llewelyn opened his mouth to make a sharp retort, but Rhys was quicker. Rhys's pride was prickly and unpredictable, easily affronted, and he'd been embarrassed by his failure to take notice of Llewelyn. Glaring at his cousin, he snapped, "And Llewelyn might well ask if this is the Welsh way of welcome!"Turning back to Llewelyn, he smiled, said, "We thought you'd be home for your uncle's funeral, were watching for you."Llewelyn smiled back, and coming forward, he settled himself beside them on the grass. A silence fell between them, one that seemed likely to swallow up any words they could throw into the void. It was broken at last by Llewelyn;he heard himself making courteous queries about the health and well-being of their families, falling back upon all the obligatory conversational gambits to be shared between strangers. Nor did Rhys ease the awkwardness any by offeringLlewelyn formal condolences for the death of his uncle.
27I lewelyn would have liked to speak freely, to explain that he'd not his UncleOwa.in all that well. But he felt constrained to respond ha conventional politeness, and thus found himself flying false colWl coming before them in the guise of a grief that was not his. ° ' Rhys offered him an apple. "Did your stepfather come with you?" asked, as if he could possibly have had any interest in Hugh's whereabouts.Llewelyn nodded - "Hugh came on behalf of the Corbet family, as a sture of respect to my mother's kin ..." He stopped, for Ednyved had teaned forward, was regarding him with exaggerated attention."Why do you look at me like that? Has my face of a sudden turned green?""I was trying to decide," Ednyved drawled, "whether or not you'd picked up aFrench accent."Llewelyn tensed, ~but then he looked more closely at the other boy, saw thatEdnyved's eyes were bright with friendly laughter."No French accent," he said, and grinned, "but I did spend some right uncomfortable days this spring, worrying that I'd picked up the French pox!"Ednyved's mouth twitched. "Llewelyn!" With a frown toward his cousin. "If you please, no bawdy talknot before the lad here!" Ducking just in time as an apple whizzed past his head.Seconds later, Rhys followed up his aerial assault with a direct frontal attack, and Ednyved, caught off balance, was knocked flat. Rhys's anger was more assumed than not, and their scuffling soon took on an almost ritualistic quality, for this was an old game, rarely played out in earnest, and likely to continue until one or the other of the combatants lost interest. In this case the mock battle lasted until they noticed that Llewelyn had appropriated the rest of the apples and stretched himself out comfortably on the turf to watch, for all the world like a front-row spectator at a bearbaiting."Go to it, lads," he said airily, and by common consent, they both pounced on him at once. For a few hectic moments all three boys were tumbling about on the riverbank, until at last they lay panting in a tangled heap, lacking breath for anything but laughter.After that, there seemed to be too much to say and not enough time m which to say it, and they plunged into the past as if fearing it might somehow be forgotten if it was not shared immediately, interrupting each other freely, trading insults and memories, laughing for laughter's sake alone.Rhys had gone to the river to drink. Returning, he threw himself "wl" 'n ^e8rass/ anc* broke into Ednyved's monologue to demand, When must you go back toEngland, Llewelyn?"
28"I'm not going back," Llewelyn said, at once capturing their undivided attention."You both know the history of my House, know how my uncles Davydd and Rhodri cheated my father and my other uncles of their rightful share of my grandfather's inheritance. They carved Gwynedd up between them as if it were a meat pie, forced my father, Owain Fawr's firstborn, into exile, brought about his death whilst I was shll in my cradle. His blood is on their hands and they've yet to answer for it I think it time they did.""You mean to avenge your father's death?" Rhys's green eyes were luminous, aglitter with sudden excitement, but Ednyved seemed far more dubious."All know the English are born half mad," he said slowly, "but I wonder if the madness might not be in the water they drink or the air they breathe. How else explain that four short years amongst them could have so scattered your wits?"Llewelyn was amused. "Your faith in me is truly wondrous to behold, Ednyved.Think you that I'm such a fool as to challenge my uncles on my own, with onlyGod on my side? I had a long talk this morn with my Uncle Gruffydd, and he has sworn to give me his full backing, men who know war well and the money to pay them; he even offered the services of no less a soldier than Gwyn ab Ednywain.It is my intent, too, to join forces with my Uncle Cynan's two grown sons.They were denied their inheritance just as I was, giving us common cause against Davydd and Rhodri.""When you do put it that way, it does not sound quite so crackbrained,"Ednyved conceded. "But how in the name of the Lord Jesus did you ever get your lady mother and stepfather to give their consent?"Llewelyn hesitated. "Well, to be honest,