Falls the Shadow by Sharon Kay Penman Read Free Book Online Page A

wife.
     
    Elen arrived at Aber in mid-afternoon, but by then Joanna was delirious again. She never regained consciousness, died in the early hours of dawn on Candlemas, February 2. At week’s end, her body was ferried across the strait to the island of Môn, where she was buried, as she’d requested, in a seaside garden near Llewelyn’s manor at Llanfaes.
    It was a cold, blustery day, a day of wet winds and intermittent rains. Despite the raw, winter weather, there was a large turnout for the funeral of Llewelyn’s lady; well-born Welsh lords stood shoulder to shoulder with Marcher barons as the Bishop of St Asaph performed the funeral Mass under a darkening sky. The Bishop had consecrated a burial ground within sight of the sea, and the people murmured among themselves, wondering why Llewelyn had chosen to bury Joanna here, rather than in the village church. They had their answer at the conclusion of the Mass, when Bishop Hugh announced that Prince Llewelyn had vowed to found a house of Franciscan friars at Llanfaes, to pray for the soul of the Lady Joanna.
    None doubted the depths of Llewelyn’s grieving; it was there for all the world to see in the haggard face, the hollowed dark eyes. But few had expected a gesture of such spectacular and dramatic dimensions. Llelo was standing close enough to hear his mother’s indrawn breath. As inconspicuously as possible, he backed away, then circled around the mourners, at last reached his grandfather’s side.
    Llewelyn was standing with his son and daughter by Joanna’s tomb. He’d put artisans to work day and night to complete it in time; the coffin lid bore his wife’s effigy, was decorated with floriated crosses, foliage, a winged dragon. The coffin had been sprinkled with holy water; it was being splattered now with rain drops, with Elen’s silent tears as she bent over, touched her lips to the cold, carven stone.
    “My lord?” The Bishop of St Asaph waited at a respectful distance, knowing how difficult it always was for the living to bid farewell to their dead. “My lord Llewelyn, shall we return to Aber now?”
    “Yes, go.” Llewelyn did not move, though. “Take the others back, Davydd. You, too, lass,” he said, when Elen would have objected. “I would have some last moments alone with her,” he said softly, and his children no longer protested, left him there in the bleak, windswept garden.
    The rain was coming down heavily by the time the mourners were ferried back to Aber. The great hall was soon filled to overflowing with cold and hungry guests. Davydd’s wife had made herself ill with her weeping, had taken to bed, but both Davydd and Elen were still in the hall, accepting condolences with the brittle, prideful gallantry of noblesse oblige. Joanna’s sister Nell had borne up with equal fortitude, but now her composure cracked and she covered her face with her hands, began to sob. Llelo was closest to her, but he did not know how to comfort, willingly relinquished the field to a French cousin of John the Scot. Simon de Montfort moved swiftly to Nell’s side, gently led her toward the greater privacy of a window-seat, then hovered protectively nearby until Nell had regained composure.
    Llelo retreated, but he could find no refuge, no way to outrun the memory of his grandfather, standing alone by a white stone coffin. Never before had Llelo experienced what it was like to identify with another’s pain, and he did not know how to deal with the hurting, the shattering sense of helplessness. In his misery, he sought out his father.
    Gruffydd had expected to rejoice on this day, for he’d hated Joanna with a passionate hatred that only death could satisfy. Now she was dead, but as he’d looked upon his father’s stunned, silent grieving, he could feel no joy, only an unwilling sense of pity, pity his father did not deserve. He brooded now upon this, shamed by his weakness, by wayward emotions he did not understand, too troubled himself to see a small