Sharon K. Penman - Here Be Dragons

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HERE BE DRAGONS

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ALSO BY SHARON KAY PENMAN

The Sunne in Splendour

Falls the Shadow

The Reckoning

HERE BE

SHARON KAY PENMAN

Ballantine Books New York

Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized If this book is

coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as "unsold or destroyed"

and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it

Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New

York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of

Canada Limited, Toronto.

This edition published by arrangement with Henry Holt

and Company.

Maps by Anita Karl and Jim Kemp

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-90026

ISBN: 0-345-38284-6

Cover design by Georgia Morrissey

Cover art by Ambrogio Lorenzetti: The Effects of Good Government, fragment.

Fresco, 1337-1340/The Granger Collection

Manufactured in the United States of America First Ballantine Books Edition:

June 1993

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12

To my parents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1. WOULD like to thank the following people for their support and

encouragement and understanding: My parents. Julie McCaskey Wolff. My agent,

Molly Friedrich of the Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency. My dear friend Cris

Arnott, who helped me to track down the elusive Richard Fitz Roy. Betty Rowles

and Jean and Basil Hill, who showed me so many kindnesses during my research

trips to Wales. Olwen Caradoc Evans and Helen Ramage, who shared with me their

knowledge and love of Welsh history. Above all, my editor at Holt, Rinehart

and Winston, Marian Wood. And lastly, the staffs of the National Library of

Wales, the British Library, the Caernarfon Archives, the University College of

North Wales Library, the research libraries of Cardiff, Llangefni, and

Shrewsbury, the Brecknock Borough Library, the County Archives Office in Mold,

and in the United States, the University of Pennsylvania Library.

PROLOGUE

THEIRS was a land of awesome grandeur, a land

of mountains and moorlands and cherished myths. They called it Cymru and

believed themselves to be the descendants of Brutus and the citizens of

ancient Troy. They were a passionate, generous, and turbulent people, with but

one fatal flaw. They proclaimed themselves to be Cymry"fellow countrymen"but

they fought one another as fiercely as they did their English neighbors, and

had carved three separate kingdoms out of their native soil. To the north was

the alpine citadel of Gwynedd, bordered by Powys, and to the south lay the

realm of Deheubarth. To the English kings, this constant discord was a

blessing and they did what they could to sow seeds of dissension and strife

amongst the Welsh.

During the reigns of the Norman Conqueror, William the Bastard, and his sons,

the English crown continued to gain influence in Wales; Norman castles rose up

on Welsh soil, and Norman towns began to take root in the valleys of South

Wales. As the Normans had subdued the native-born Saxons, so, too, it began to

seem that they would subdue the Welsh.

HENRY Plantagenet, King of England, Lord of Ireland and Wales, Duke of

Normandy, Count of Anjou, ordered a wall fresco to be painted in his chamber

at Winchester Castle. It depicted a fierce, proud eagle being attacked by four

eaglets; as the great bird struggled, the eaglets tore at its flesh with

talons and beaks. When asked what this portended, Henry said that he was the

eagle and the eaglets were his sons.

And as the King's sons grew to manhood, it came to pass just as er|ry had

foretold. Four sons had he. Young Henry, his namesake and

Xll

heir, was crowned with his sire in his sixteenth year. Richard, the second

son, was invested with the duchy of Aquitaine, ruling jointly with Eleanor,

his lady mother. Geoffrey became Duke of Brittany. The youngest son was John;

men called him John Lackland for he was the last-born and the Angevin empire

had already been divided amongst his elder brothers.

But John alone held with his father. The other sons turned upon Henry, seeking

to rend him as the eaglets had raked and clawed at the bleeding eagle on the

wall of Winchester Castle. In the year of Christ

1183, the House of Plantagenet was at war against itself.

BOOK ONE

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HEREBEDRAGONS,-ftjprfcIALSOBYSHARONKAYPENMANTheSunneinSplendourFallstheShadowTheReckoningHEREBESHARONKAYPENMANBallantineBooksNewYorkSaleofthisbookwithoutafrontcovermaybeunauthorizedIfthisbookiscoverless,itmayhavebeenreportedtothepublisheras"unsoldordestroyed"andneithertheauthornorthepublishermayhave...

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