Free Rhiannon by Roberta Gellis

the king must be constrained to obey the law.”
    “Do you understand what you are saying, Simon? To stand with
me, if worse comes to worst, may set your hand against your own father and
brothers.”
    “Not Adam,” Simon said, and then swallowed. Geoffrey would
certainly respond to Henry’s call to arms if one should be issued. Then relief
brightened his eyes. “And not Papa either. If I am with you, he will take the
excuse of his age to send his men out in Geoffrey’s care. I do not need to
worry about Geoffrey coming to blows with me. Wherever I am, he will not be.
Papa always said Geoffrey was too clever by half. He will manage to avoid me
somehow—if I cannot avoid him.”
    “And you may be sure that I will do my uttermost that you
avoid each other. But this is going too far. I have no intention of making war
on the king. God forbid! He is my lord. I have given my oath to support him—”
    “In all that is right,” Simon inserted quickly. “Not in
oppressing his people, robbing them, imprisoning them—”
    “That is true, but still I would not wage war against my
overlord if any other path is open to making him mend his ways. Let us not talk
of such extreme measures. Perhaps I am too much moved by what you have told me.
What I should have asked is whether you would be willing—should it become
necessary—to be an emissary for me to Lord Llewelyn.”
    “Of course,” Simon answered, almost too quickly, then
flushed.
    A violent joy suffused him. When Rhiannon had bid him go at
the end of May, he had done so, telling himself furiously that she was quite
right. No doubt he was ensorcelled by her presence. If he returned to the
civilized and elegant women of England, he would soon grow disdainful of her
wild, primitive charm. Only he had not been able even to try. Such a sense of
disgust filled him each time he began a flirtation that he fled away. He could
not even take joy in those old partners he did not need to woo, who did not
demand sweet words but only desired the sensual pleasure his strong, skilled
body could provide. He could ease his body, just as he could use a chamber pot,
but there was no pleasure in it. He desired only Rhiannon.
    By June, Simon would have been on his way back to Wales,
ready, like the courtly lovers in romances whom he had always ridiculed, to
plead for a smile, a look, a single word—except that he knew Rhiannon would say
he had not been away long enough. Pride, too, warred with love and might have
lost if he had not been caught up in the political problems the king was
creating. Still, Simon was not yet directly concerned with the actions of the
English king. He would not be directly affected by Henry’s lunacies until Ian died
and Simon did homage for the northern lands. However, what happened in England
always affected Wales. Besides, Simon knew it was useful to have firsthand
knowledge of what was going on, rather than garbled rumors or the sometimes
deliberately slanted news in his mother’s letters. Alinor was a great one for
bending the truth a little this way or that to forward her own purposes.
    This, coupled with the fact that Simon knew he could not say
to Rhiannon I have been constant without sounding ridiculous when he had
been away for less than three months, kept him from returning to her. Now,
however, Richard was offering him the perfect excuse to do what he ached to do.
Even if he were not sent back to Wales at once, there would be high excitement
in being with Richard Marshal and—whatever the earl said about not wanting to
oppose the king—Simon was sure there would be fighting. That would at least
serve to take his mind off Rhiannon.
    “If you will give me leave, my lord,” Simon said quickly, “I
will bring back my men with me when I bring Geoffrey and my father. Then I can
accompany you when you go.”
    “I will be happy to have you, having come with only four
men, but do you think it wise to associate yourself with me so openly? Will
Lord Ian be