Prince of Time (26 page)

Lili looked from her brother to me. “You accept it in your future wife, Ieuan. Can you allow it in your sister?”

“That’s something you need to relearn, right there,” Ieuan said. “You don’t need to ask that. Tell me: ‘I need this, Ieuan.’ Don’t ask me what’s right for you. Know it. Know yourself well enough to reach out and grab what you need to be a complete person.”

Lili nodded. “I need this Ieuan. I need it more than I can tell you.”

* * * * *

The talk of the day was the return of Tudur, with the castellan of Aberedw’s head in a sack. Ieuan and Goronwy had inspected it, once Tudur finished his audience with David, and then sent two men-at-arms to bury it outside the castle walls. In doing so, they denied him consecrated ground, underscoring for anyone who hadn’t been paying attention, the seriousness of his offense.

David spent the rest of the day with his father and didn’t descend into the hall until it was time for the evening meal. Ieuan and I sat at a table that ran perpendicular to David’s. He sat in his father’s chair with the more powerful lords on either side. We’d only just begun to eat, however, when a rider from Hereford demanded entry.

 “I have a message for the Prince of Wales,” he said. He was of average height, with black hair, beard and mustache, and a pristine tunic. He must have changed before he entered the hall.

“He is unwell,” David said, “but recovering. What is the message?”

“Who are you?” The man’s chest puffed out with his own importance.

Tudur pushed back his chair and stood, his back to the great stone fireplace. “He is Dafydd ap Llywelyn, heir to the Principality of Wales. You were expecting someone else?”

“Er—” The man hesitated, looking from Carew, to Tudur, to Goronwy, and then back to David.

They all gazed back at him, stone-faced.

“You didn’t expect to find me here, did you?” David said.

“No, my lord,” the man said. “I had heard, er—” He stopped.

“You had heard that I was dead,” David said.

“Er, yes.” The man bowed, taking refuge in the enforced formality of David’s position.

“What is your message?” David said.

“I was told to give the message only to Prince Llywelyn,” the man said.

“Fine.” David inspected the fingernails on his left hand. “Return to your master. It’s all one to me.”

Ieuan had risen to his feet when the man entered the hall and now stood, his feet spread, with cold eyes and his fists clenched at his sides.

The messenger waffled, and then capitulated. He straightened and called out in a loud voice, in Welsh: “Hear the words of Sir Humphrey de Bohun, third Earl of Hereford, second Earl of Essex, Lord High Constable of England and co-regent for King Edward II.”

He paused to breathe and David said, “Who are the other regents?”

“Er,” the man said, confused at being interrupted. “John Kirby, the Lord High Treasurer and Robert de Vere, the Lord Great Chamberlain and Earl of Oxford.”

David nodded, though I didn’t know if those names meant any more to him than they did to me. “Continue.”

“The Lord High Constable has exhibited great patience through the trials of the last years. In his office of co-regent, he orders you to cease and desist in your depredations against his holdings and those of the other English lords whom you and your men have inconvenienced, nay besieged, with behavior unbefitting a vassal to the throne of England. In particular, he claims the castles of Bronllys, Buellt, Dolforwyn, Dryslwyn, Carreg Cennan, Dinefwr, Llandovery, and Pembroke. You are ordered to vacate those castles and quit their vicinity forthwith.”

David leaned toward Carew, who sat a few paces from me on David’s right side. “We’ve taken Pembroke?”

Carew raised his eyebrows. “Apparently. I think we’ll keep it. What say you, my lord?”

“I’d say so too,” David said, rising to his feet. He walked around the table, still rather stiffly, and approached the messenger, who’d backed up a step at his approach.

“How long does Hereford give me to reply?”

“He did not say, my lord.”

“Well, you tell Bohun that he can have my answer now,” David said. He poked the man in the chest with his index finger. With each poke, the messenger took one step backwards and David stepped forward, such that the words that followed was punctuated by ‘poke, step’; ‘poke, step.’

“First, Hereford has no authority over me, or any lands, in Wales. Second, in future, we expect any messages from the throne of England to the throne of Wales to be sent in the proper fashion, with the pomp and glory that befits our station, not carried and shouted in the hall by a little weasel such as you; and third, inform your master that from this moment, the throne of Wales is confiscating all holdings in Wales not held by a baron loyal to my father. He and his friends have thirty days to either vacate their former estates and castles, or submit a petition indicating their new loyalty to my father.”

“My lord!” the messenger said. David and the messenger had reached the door to the great hall. David towered over him, still poking him in the chest.

“Furthermore, in case your master is confused as to what constitutes the boundary of Wales, there is a wall, we speak of it as the Dyke, built long ago to keep the Welsh penned inside their mountains. We claim all territory to the west of that line and from this moment forward, will defend it to the last man, woman, and child. One of my lords took two castles for me just this week.” He tipped his head towards Tudur. “That must be some kind of record, eh, Tudur?”

“As you say, my lord,” he said, laughter behind his words.

“If one, just one, of your master’s men whom he has sentried on the border between our countries sets foot into our territory, we will not be responsible for the consequences. Do you understand your charge?”

“Yes, yes, my lord,” the man said, groping for the door handle.

David spun on one heel and stalked back up the hall. “That man,” he pointed back at the messenger, “needs an escort across our border. Ieuan, will you—” David stopped in front of Ieuan. “What? What is it?”

“That man,” Ieuan said, his eyes fixed on the man by the door, “is my father.”

“Your father?” David said. He swung around to look at the messenger, and then back to Ieuan. “Anything you want, Ieuan. Anything I can do for you or you need. Just tell me. It’s yours if it is possible to command it.”

Ieuan transferred his gaze to David. At nearly the same height and a foot apart, their conversation was only for each other. “Leave it to me, my lord,” Ieuan said. “I will see that he reaches England.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ieuan

M
y skin crawled as I escorted my father across the bailey. “You may rest in the barracks and refresh yourself for a few hours until you return to England,” I said.

“I was sorry to find you here,” my father said. “You are unchanged.”

“
I
am unchanged?” I said, losing control so quickly a red film crossed my eyes.
Hang on! Hang on!
“Hereford? Father, how could you? How could you swear allegiance to such a man?”

“He is not Llywelyn.”

“No, he’s not! He’s Hereford! You taught me to hate him from my first breath!”

“I taught you to hate Llywelyn too, and look where that got me. Times change, son,” he said.

“Yes, they do! And for the better!” I couldn’t help the rising of my voice, but other men were looking at us and I tried to modulate my tone. “Father, Hereford seeks the end of Wales.”

“He does not. He merely wants the lands that belong to him, as I want mine returned to me.”

“And this, Hereford has promised,” I said, disheartened yet again by my father’s attitude. “You’ve traded your honor for your purse.”

“My
honor
.” He turned on me. “What do you know of honor? You bow and scrape to
that
man. Llywelyn is a fool and his son an idiot to think he can defy Humphrey de Bohun.”

I grasped my father’s cloak, no longer trying to contain my anger. “You dare to speak ill of Prince Dafydd? He is the best of men. Even you can have nothing against him.”

“He is Llywelyn’s son. That is enough.”

I released him. “What has Llywelyn ever done to you?” I swallowed. I’d wanted to ask that question for ten years and never had the chance or the courage.

“Nothing! That’s the point.” We’d reached the barracks and my father turned in the doorway.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“I offered him my services. I asked Llywelyn for the honor of leading his men at the first defeat of his brother Dafydd at Bryn Derwin, thirty years ago. He chose Goronwy instead.” My father stopped. The silence that followed was painful, for he’d finally spoken the truth.

“So you went to his brother, Dafydd,” I said, “and he made you his right hand man. Through all those years, you aided and abetted him, plotting against Llywelyn because he’d hurt your pride.”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” my father said. “I did what I had to do.” He turned on his heel and the barracks door closed behind him.

“I’m sure you did,” I said.

I felt someone watching me, and turned to look. Bronwen stood on the bottom step, her eyes steady on mine. “Prince Dafydd would see you in his father’s rooms as soon as you are able,” she said.

I nodded. “I’m ready now,” I said. I took her arm and we returned to the keep.

* * * * *

“To what exactly have you committed us, my lord?” Goronwy said. Everyone had gathered around Prince Llywelyn’s bed while Dafydd had related to him the substance of Hereford’s message—and Dafydd’s response.

Dafydd and his father studied each other, both clear-eyed.

“I’ve called him out,” Dafydd said, with an insouciant grin. He bounced up and down on the balls of his feet.

The other lords didn’t look so pleased. “Please explain,” Carew said. “I feel I haven’t quite caught your intent.”

“Don’t you see?” Dafydd said. “Hereford thought I was dead! He thought father was going to die! This is going to blow him out of the water!”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning, son. Some of us are slow to catch you up, especially when you speak in that fashion,” Llywelyn said.

“Okay,” Dafydd said, calming his enthusiasm and starting to pace. “We know that Hereford must have arrived in Lancaster on the heels of our departure. He found King Edward dead, but as neither he nor any of his men had ever met me, assumed the body that Moses had decorated with the discarded dragon surcoat was mine.”

“We understand that, my lord,” said Carew.

“Immediately, Hereford did two things: one, he sent word to his wife and allies to prepare for action against Wales. With my death and father’s injury, which we still don’t know enough about, he was counting on our inability to counter him. Two, he took the Archbishop of Canterbury and raced to London, to Edward’s son. The sooner Hereford was on the spot, the more likely it was that he would be named regent.”

“He was named regent,” Goronwy said.

“Yes! That’s true. But only co-regent. Vere and Kirby share his power, and do you know what that means?”

“That he can do nothing without their approval.” Tudur nodded. “Of course. He had thought that becoming regent would give him near total authority in England and Wales. Instead, he finds himself sharing that authority with two other men who don’t support his ambitions and certainly wouldn’t support a full-scale—and very expensive—assault on Wales.”

“Exactly,” Dafydd said.

“No,” I said. “I’m still not understanding why you’re so pleased.”

“Ieuan,” Dafydd said, “do you remember when we were in prison in Carlisle, when we concluded that Hereford would try to take advantage of the power vacuum in England?”

“Yes,” I said. “And he has done so.”

“He hoped he could,” I said. “Now, however, he has neither the power, nor the money, to invade Wales, not on the scale he intended, and not when he is facing a Prince Llywelyn who is very much alive.”

“Hereford expected his messenger to find us in disarray,” Carew said. “He knew that he couldn’t invade us, but was hoping we wouldn’t know it. His intent was that he wouldn’t have to, that we would fold up our tents.”

“You exposed his deception,” Llywelyn said.

“What will he do now?” Goronwy said.

“The question is what
we
will do now,” Dafydd said. “I may have called his bluff, but I wasn’t bluffing. I suggest we continue where Tudur left off the other day.”

“Which is where?” Gruffydd said. Until now, he’d followed the conversation without contributing to it.

“How many castles and English holdings lie in the lands bordered by the Severn, the Wye, and the Dyke?” Dafydd said.

“A dozen, the largest being Montgomery, four miles northwest of Dolforwyn, and Painscastle, to the south and east of Buellt,” Tudur said. “The war has taken its toll and there are fewer castles than a few years ago. Knighton, for example, Prince Llywelyn destroyed in 1262 and it has not been rebuilt.”

Prince Llywelyn pushed himself straighter in his bed. “So, we do exactly as Dafydd has said, starting with this corner of Wales. We send riders to every Englishman, informing him of the line we’ve drawn and demanding their departure or their allegiance. It’s as simple as that.”

“They will resist,” said Goronwy.

“Of course they will, and then we’ll take them down, one by one, starting with the smaller holdings which are more difficult to defend,” the Prince said.

“Hereford won’t stand by and let us do this,” Gruffydd said. “He can’t.”

“He will marshal his men and those of his immediate allies,” Llywelyn said, “but so many of the Marcher lords are dead with Edward, that he hasn’t the ability to gather enough on such short notice, not with the heirs themselves unconfirmed in their holdings.”

“When the cat’s away, the mice will play,” Dafydd said, with satisfaction, “except the mice are not Hereford and his allies, but
us.
” He swung around to face his father. “You remember the Rising of 1256? You swept east through Gwynedd, south through Powys, and all the way to Deheubarth in one summer.”