Free Falls the Shadow by Sharon Kay Penman Page B

boy had begun to back toward the door. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I’m sorry,” and Llewelyn struggled upright.
    “Llelo…wait. Come back.”
    The lantern light swayed, seemed to float toward the bed. Llelo bent down, set it on the floor, almost as if he sensed that the man wanted no illumination, no close scrutiny.
    “I brought you something, Grandpapa. I know your chaplain gave you a dispensation to eat meat whilst you’re ailing. But when I was in the hall, I heard that you’d refused to eat the pasty the cooks made for you, even though it was stuffed with marrow and currants and dates…” There was wonder in Llelo’s voice; he could not understand anyone spurning beef marrow, especially after so many weeks of meatless Lenten fare. “I thought you ought to eat, Grandpapa, so I went to the kitchen, and when the cooks were not looking, I smuggled this out.” Lifting his mantle, he drew out a napkin, began to unwrap it. “See? I’ve got some ginger cake for you, two Lenten fritters, with apples and real sugar, and best of all, an angel’s-bread wafer.”
    Llewelyn looked down at the crumbled cakes, felt his queasiness coming back. “Good lad. But that is too much for just one. Why not share it with me? You go ahead, and I’ll save mine for later, when I get truly hungry.”
    “If you’re sure…” Llelo whipped out his eating knife, conscientiously set about dividing his booty into equal halves. “I can get you more later,” he offered, settling himself on the edge of the bed.
    “No, thank you, lad.” Llewelyn watched the boy eat. There was no need to talk. But a memory was slowly stirring. “Why are you still here, Llelo?” he asked suddenly. “Ednyved told me Gruffydd had gone. How is it you did not go with him?”
    Llelo had stopped eating. He licked honey off his fingers, mumbled something about “staying behind.”
    “That I can see,” Llewelyn said dryly, but his eyes were puzzled. “Gruffydd permitted you to stay?” As soon as he heard his own question, he realized the utter unlikelihood of that. “Llelo?”
    The boy had averted his eyes. “I…I could not leave, Grandpapa. Not whilst you were so sick…”
    “Jesú!” It was an involuntary exclamation, a belated and appalled understanding of the choice the boy had been forced to make, of yet another wound he’d unwittingly inflicted upon his son.
    “Grandpapa?” Llelo was watching him with anxious eyes. “Grandpapa…do you not want me to stay?”
    The sins of the fathers. Llewelyn reached out, took his grandson’s small, sticky fingers in his own. “Yes, lad,” he said. “I do want you to stay. More than I knew.”

3
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Llanfaes, North Wales
    May 1237
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    Gruffydd reined in his horse at the edge of the wood, gazed out onto the beach. The narrow strait that separated the island of Môn from the mainland was swept by treacherous currents, the water surface churned by brisk winds. Llewelyn was sitting on the moss-covered spar of an old ship wreck, watching Llelo splash in the shallows. The boy gave a sudden shout, whirled and came running back to Llewelyn. The distance was too great for Gruffydd to see what he held; he thought it might be a crab. He watched as the man and boy bent their heads over Llelo’s find; he could not remember his son ever running to him like that. They had yet to notice him; Llewelyn’s dogs were upwind, ranging along the beach some yards away. Gruffydd’s mouth tightened. You’re getting careless, old man. You ought to have taken heed of me ere this. He urged his stallion forward, onto the sand.
    They saw him now. Llelo took an involuntary step backward. The two weeks Gruffydd had grudgingly promised him had unaccountably lengthened into four and then six. Each morn he wondered if this would be the day his father would come for him, and as the weeks passed, a poisonous fear began to entwine itself around his reluctance to leave his grandfather, the fear that his mother had