Here Be Dragons - 1 Read Free

have you taken up with now, Stephen?"
Llewelyn flushed. "I am Llewelyn ab lorwerth," he said after a long pause;
instinct was now alerting him to trouble. At the same time Stephen burst into nervous speech.
"He is a Welsh Prince, Walter, and ... and he's been telling me all about
Wales ..."
''Oh, he has?" Walter said softly, and Stephen, who knew his rother well enough to be forewarned, tried to shrink back. But Walter
    still had a grip on his tunic. With his other hand he grasped a fistful of
Stephen's hair and yanked, until Stephen's head was drawn back so fa that he seemed to be staring skyward, and was whimpering with pajn
"That's just what I could expect from you. No more common sense than the stupidest serf, not since the day you were born. So he's been telling you about Wales? Did he tell you, too, about the crops burned in the fields, the villages plundered, the women carried off?" Releasing Stephen, he swung around suddenly on Llewelyn.
"Suppose you tell him about it now. Tell my lack-wit brother about the border raids, tell him how brave your murdering countrymen are against defenseless peasants and how they run like rabbits when \ve send men-at-arms against them!"
Sul was grazing some yards away, and for several moments Llewelyn had been measuring the distance, wanting nothing so much as to be up on the gelding's back and off at a breakneck run. But with Walter's taunt, he froze where he was, pride temporarily prevailing over fear. He'd never run like a rabbit, never. But there was a betraying huskiness in his voice as he said, "I have nothing to say to you."
Walter was flanked by his two companions; they'd moved closer to Llewelyn, too close, and he took a backward step. But he dared retreat no farther, for the brook embankment was at his back and he did not know how to swim. He stood very still, head held high, for he'd once seen a stray spaniel face down several larger dogs by showing no fear. They stepped in, tightening the circle, but made no move to touch him. He was never to know how long the impasse might have lasted, for at that moment one of the boys noticed Sul.
"Damn me if he does not have his own mount! Where would a Welsh whelp get a horse like that?"
"Where do you think?" Walter, too, was staring at the chestnut, with frankly covetous eyes. "You know what they say. Scratch a Welshman, find a horse thief."
Llewelyn felt a new and terrible fear, for he'd raised Sul from a spindle-legged foal; Sul was his pride, his heart's passion. He forgot all else, and grabbed at Walter's arm as the older boy turned toward Sul. "He's mine, to me! You leave him be!"
It was a grievous mistake, and he paid dearly for it. They were on him at once, all three of them, and he went down in a welter of thudding fists and jabbing elbows. He flailed out wildly, desperately, but he could match neither his assailants' strength nor their size, and he was soon pinned down in the trampled grass, Walter's knees on his chest/ his mouth full of his own blood.
"Misbegotten sons of Satan, the lot of you!" Walter panted "Bloody bastards, not worth the hanging . . ." And if the profanity &
    If consciously on his lips, flaunted as tangible proof of passage into mysteries of manhood, the venom in his voice was not an affectawas rooted in a bias that was ageless, breathed in from birth.
'"Know you what we mean to do now, Welsh rabbit? Pluck you as i an as a chicken ..." He reached out, tore the crucifix chain from
I levvelyn's neck. "Spoils of war, starting with that chestnut horse you tole You can damned well walk back to Wales, mother-naked, and just thank your heathen gods that we did not hang you for a horse thief! Go on Philip, I'll n°ld him whilst you get his boots ..."
Sul. They were going to take Sul. His bruised ribs, his bloodied nose, hurt and humiliation and impotent furyall of that was nothing now, not when balanced against the loss of Sul. Llewelyn gave a sudden frantic heave, caught
Walter off guard, and rolled free. But as