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stepfather's squires. Should he tell Alan of his family's plus, he knew what the other
°y would expect, a Norman edifice of soaring stone and mortar, for
W lle most castles were timbered fortresses, the word "palace" conjured up images of grandeur and luxury. Llewelyn had been to London, had
^een the Tower and the palace at Westminster, and he'd heard of the corn" °f Windsor Castle. He knew there was nothing in Wales to mpare to the magnificence of the Norman court, and he cared not at
311 *at this was so.
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He laughed suddenly, and when Alan shot him a curious look, he slid from Sul, handing the squire the reins.
"I'd be obliged if you looked after Sul, Alan. Should my lady mother or my stepfather ask for me, concoct what excuse you will."
Alan grinned. "Consider it done. But are you sure you'd not want company?"
Llewelyn was tempted, but only briefly. He thought of Alan as a friend, but his were memories, emotions, sensations that no Norman could hope to understand.
The Vyrnwy was free of the mud and debris that so often polluted English rivers, for there were no towns to despoil its purity with refuse and human waste. Llewelyn could see chalk-white pebbles glimmering on the shallow river bottom, see the shadows cast by fish feeding amidst the wavering stalks of water weeds. He forgot entirely that his uncle had died by 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. The
Vyrnwy 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
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himself 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