“Never fear, cariad,” Ieuan said as the soldiers rode away. “Prince Dafydd and I kept our knives close. We wouldn’t have let them harm you.”
David walked to my right foot and looked up at me. “It takes you by surprise, doesn’t it?” he asked. “The fear, I mean.”
“Yes,” I said, pulling my cloak closer around me. The rush of the adrenaline was fading, leaving me exhausted. “And this was nothing.”
“Not nothing, Bronwen,” David said. “The danger was real. The soldiers could have killed us and taken you for the fun of it with no repercussions.”
“That violence is always under the surface, isn’t it?” I asked, looking from David to Ieuan. Ieuan put an arm around my shoulder. “I see it in you two. You take it on and off like a cloak.”
“It’s one of those things you learn to live with,” David said. And then to Ieuan he added, “Let’s move on, before they come back. I say we cross the Dyke right here and not wait for the road to turn across it. Other soldiers at the crossroads will be watching.”
“Peasants would stay on the road,” Ieuan said. “They’ll expect it.”
“Can you see us withstanding a thorough search? You’re Welsh, and for all intents and purposes, so is Bronwen. They might just run you through once you open your mouth, rather than bother with questions. I don’t want to risk it.”
Ieuan examined the country through which we were traveling. We were alone, all sane people who were not soldiers having already hidden themselves in their crofts or retreated to a safer spot. It was very quiet. “Right,” Ieuan said. “I’ve not been here for many years, but my uncle’s lands—my lands—are ten miles from here as the crow flies.”
“Can you lead us there?” David asked.
“Yes,” Ieuan said. “But not with the cart.”
“We’ll turn this beast around and send him back the way we came,” David said. “He helped convince the soldiers we were common folk, but he’ll only hinder us from here on.”
“We shouldn’t, my lord,” Ieuan said. “If soldiers see an abandoned cart and horse they’ll wonder why.”
“Then what do we do?” David asked.
“We hide the cart, as we did Bronwen’s car, and bring the horse with us. He can carry our belongings and should have no more trouble walking than we do.”
David nodded. “You’re right, Ieuan. Let’s do it.”
I turned on the bench and climbed into the back. I couldn’t wait to cross into Wales. “Here,” I said, handing Ieuan his sword and quiver. “What shall we do with the clothes?” David had climbed into the back with me, and tied a blanket to disguise his backpack.
“The horse will carry it all,” he said. “We’ll leave nothing in the cart for anyone to find.” Then he grinned wickedly at me. “Your fiancé is a smart man, even if he’s a Welsh barbarian.”
“Wha—?” I managed, before Ieuan laughed. He put his hands at my waist and lifted me from the cart. I handed him his bow, which I clutched in my hand.
“Should she have a weapon?” David asked him.
Ieuan stiffened, but then looked down at me and nodded. “I would there was no need, but if anything happens to us, I’d prefer she could defend herself.” He took a knife from his belt and showed it to me, before tucking it at my waist.
“Show me how you grasp it,” he said.
I pulled it from its sheath and held it out like it was a very short sword.
“Not that way,” David said. “Reversed. If someone comes at you, hold the knife in your right fist as if to stab, but don’t raise it high. You want it down at your side, right arm bent, a little behind you. Keep your left hand out in front, holding your opponent at bay, and then swing the knife up and across to slash him. Your fist should end up to the left of your head. Then you can bring the knife down and to the right to stab him again. You’re much stronger that way.”
I practiced the motion a few times.
“I wouldn’t have thought to teach her thus, my lord,” Ieuan said, watching, his brows furrowed.
“Karate again,” David said. “In general, a woman is at a disadvantage even with a knife, but this will give her a chance, especially if she can surprise him.”
Ieuan took my chin in his hand. “If you have to use the knife, you use it,” he said. “Don’t hesitate, don’t think. You use it and run. Do you understand?”
“Ieuan . . .” David said.
I slipped the knife back into its sheath. “It’s okay, David,” I said. “I can take it. It isn’t as if he isn’t right.”
“You’ll need to have a talk with Math, Ieuan,” David said, working on the ties that held the horse to the cart.
“Anna seems biddable enough,” Ieuan said.
David rolled his eyes. “Not likely. That’s just an act for the benefit of guests. She has opinions about everything and she tells him what they are.”
“And he doesn’t object?” Ieuan asked. He held one of the handles to the cart that had stuck out to one side of the horse. David handed the horse’s lead to me and took the other cart handle. They rolled it forward into a copse of trees to the left of the road.
“He’s learned that she’s perceptive and smart and things go better if he listens to her,” David said. “She’s his most trusted adviser because she always tells him the truth and isn’t afraid of him. Think of William the Norman and his Matilda. They had that kind of marriage.”
David’s words faded and were the last I heard, for the men had gone out of earshot. I stood alone with the horse, listening to the silence until my ears rang with it, but then Ieuan hurried back across the road.
“I didn’t mean to leave you alone, lass,” he said. “It’s not safe, not even for a moment.”
“I wasn’t worried,” I said.
“That’s only because you don’t know better,” he said. “You’d be as fine a prize for the English as Prince Dafydd...though for different reasons.”
“You live with a constant threat of danger, don’t you?” I said.
“Yes,” said David, coming up behind Ieuan, “but not like this. I’d never set foot in England before last week for that very reason. In Wales, we are surrounded by my men at all times. I can’t go anywhere alone, even to a stream to wash.”
“You did that once and look what happened,” Ieuan said, taking the horse’s reins from me.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I was kidnapped by Welshmen, one of whom was a man from my guard,” David said. “They meant to sell me to Edward.”
“But they didn’t succeed,” I said. “Obviously, you got away.”
“And had to kill two men to do it,” David said, starting to walk away.
I looked after him, not moving. Ieuan took my hand and pulled me forward. “He did what he had to do,” Ieuan said. “This world is not like yours.”
Ieuan’s hand warmed mine. I felt cold; the tears from before were gone, but the fear settled in, maybe to stay. Every bush, every hillock could hide some new threat which we would have to counter. How can they live this way all the time? How am I going to live this way?
I wasn’t allowed to see much of the Dyke, much to my regret. We scurried over it like mice, running up and down again to lose ourselves in the trees on the other side. And that’s what I saw mostly: hills and trees. I didn’t recognize the kinds of trees, botany never having been my forte, but they were deciduous and green, and many of them would have been great for climbing, if one were so inclined.
“We aren’t really in Wales yet,” Ieuan explained as we walked along, talking under our breaths in case anyone was close by and listening. “We’ve at least three miles of open country that Hereford controls before we can breathe more easily.”
“And even then,” David said, “there’s no telling how far into Wales Hereford has sent his patrols. He could be gathering his men behind the Dyke in preparation for a strong offensive, or he could be sending patrols deeper in our territory in an attempt to determine where our weaknesses l
ie.”
“I thought you said that Hereford would have gone to London or wherever Edward II resides at the moment?”
David and Ieuan glanced at each other. Okay, yes, I’m an idiot...again. David answered. “Look, Bronwen,” he said, “when you spoke of Hereford as an institution, you were right. Every great lord has a number of lesser lords who serve him directly, and hundreds of lesser knights and men-at-arms, all of whom have sworn loyalty to him. Any of the lesser lords could command here, and who it is might tell me how to defeat him, but the one pulling the strings would be Hereford.”
“This may not even be some hasty campaign, instigated since King Edward’s death, Bronwen,” Ieuan added. “Hereford knew of the conference in Lancaster long in advance. With Prince Dafydd and Prince Llywelyn distracted in England, Hereford could have been laying his plans for weeks instead of days, preparing for the optimum moment to attack. The only new information from Bohun’s point of view is Edward’s death, along with the death of many of his rivals.”
We moved through the woods, the land rising steadily. Ieuan led, as he knew the area, with me in the middle and David leading our horse, whom I’d dubbed, ‘Fred,’ so I could stop calling him ‘the horse.’
“Will we make Aberedw tonight?” I asked at one point, when we stopped to rest near some scraggly bushes.
Ieuan shook his head. He wasn’t really paying attention to me, instead peering through the growth, looking for intruders. “No, it’s too far.”
“And Painscastle is too close,” David said. “My father has hemmed the Tosnys in, but they’re still powerful and aligned with Hereford.”
“We should seek shelter for the night at the chapel at Bryngwyn,” Ieuan said. “It’s been a while since I was there, as I’ve been numbered among the Prince’s men since I was fifteen, but the priest is a childhood friend by the name of Merfyn.”
“Not English, then?” David asked.
“No. He’s Welsh, and for the Welsh. Or at least he was,” Ieuan said.
David and Ieuan looked at each other and Ieuan nodded, as if David had spoken. “I’ll go alone to scout the area,” Ieuan said. “Once we have the chapel in sight, we can hide ourselves and rest until dark.”
“We could travel at night,” I said. “You said your land was only ten miles away. Surely we can walk that in a few hours.” As soon as I spoke, I could tell once again I’d said something idiotic and they were trying to figure out how to tell me so, without insulting me.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s about to rain, cariad,” Ieuan said.
“And when the clouds come in, you will be astounded by how dark it is,” David added. “Night is not a time to travel, unless the need is very great.”
“Which we hope it’s not,” Ieuan finished. “I don’t want to stumble about in the dark so close to English lands.”
“Okay,” I said, shrugging. “Whatever you say.”
David looked at me closely. “We don’t mean to dismiss your ideas. It’s a different world we brought you to, with different rules.”
“I know it, David, or at least I am beginning to understand,” I said, exasperated. “It’s fine. I’ll catch up eventually.”
“Another mile, then,” Ieuan said, “and we’ll stop.” He set off, with us following as before.
A mile is hard work when there’s no discernible trail. As far as I could tell, Ieuan maneuvered entirely by dead reckoning. It was up this hill, around another, through this stand of trees, along that creek for five minutes, across it, getting our feet wet, and then up a hill again. A mile turned out to be more than an hour’s journey, with the darkness overtaking us before we stopped again.
I crouched with the men in a ditch on the edge of a field, abutting the church lands. The church was a pretty thing, made of whitish stones, with a real roof, not just thatch. The priest’s house stood off to one side. It was of simple construction, like the farmhouse we’d found in England: wattle and daub walls and a thatched roof.
“I’ll be back,” Ieuan said. He headed toward the house, skirting the church and keeping to the trees until he could approach it directly.
“Do you think this will be okay?” I asked David as we waited, a few raindrops beginning to plop on the ground around us.
“If Ieuan thinks so, then so do I. I don’t know these lands and my father’s rule has only occasionally extended this far. The people here have been under the English thumb for two hundred years. Many have forgotten who they are.”
After fifteen minutes, Ieuan returned, circling around to us again. “I think it’s safe,” Ieuan said. “One of us must still watch through the night, but I believe him to be the friend I remembered.”
“Let’s hope so,” David said.
“I told him that you were another knight in the Prince’s company, and . . .” Ieuan paused and looked at me. “I told him you were my bride.”
“Quite an assumption you’re making there, aren’t you?” I teased.
“It’s better this way,” David said. “You shouldn’t be traveling with us unless you’re a wife or a sister.”
We approached the door of the hut and it opened to reveal a short, scruffy man in his twenties, with a full beard. He held up a lit candle so he could see us better. Ieuan and David towered over him, so he had some difficulty, but I was just his height and his eyes met mine. His widened when I stepped forward into the light, and I touched my hand to my hair, suddenly afraid that we’d gotten it wrong.
But no. As he ushered me past him, I heard him say under his breath to Ieuan, “You have done well for yourself, old friend, but why did you bring her out here in her condition?”
My shoulders must have jerked at his words, because David’s hand pressed on the small of my back, pushing me forward, while he whispered in my ear. “Just go with it, Bronwen,” he said. “Merfyn need not know any more about us than this.”
I glanced back and wrinkled my nose at Ieuan, who grinned from behind his friend. Great! Not only married but pregnant too! What else has he told Merfyn? But then, maybe I don’t want to know . . .
We huddled in Merfyn’s house as the rain pounded on the roof. Leaks formed in the thatch, which Ieuan assured me was unusual and meant that either Merfyn hadn’t been taking care of his home, or his parishioners hadn’t been taking care of him. I rested beside Ieuan on a bench while Dafydd and Merfyn sat on stools around the fire that sputtered and guttered in the middle of the room. We’d eaten the rest of the bread and some cheese from the farmhouse, supplemented by roasted meat that Merfyn shared, along with a jug of mead (a honey wine). We didn’t dare get out Aunt Elisa’s cookies. The rain fell so heavily that it came through the hole in the roof for the smoke.
“Tell us a tale, then?” Ieuan prompted Merfyn.
“Oh, aye,” Merfyn said. He didn’t say anything right away, however, and I wondered if he’d fallen asleep or forgotten the question. Ieuan made a motion as if to prompt him again, and then Merfyn began:
When Arthur ruled
The people of Cymry
Possessed wealth and peace
Before their sovereign king.
The people of Cymry
Found tranquility at his table.
But what is this?
Commotion in every land.
The men who ride at Arthur’s side:
Cai, Bedwyr, Ieuan, Rhys, Gruffydd.
They ride towards us,
Riding out of tales
From another age.
Strapping their swords to their waists,
Setting their pikes in their rests,
Spurring forward,
Protectors of a ravaged country.
When Arthur passed
Into Avalon,
The Cymry lost their bounty,
Choosing alliance with their enemies.
The ambitious man raised his head,
The jealous man rose from his knees,
The righteous man lifted his hands in prayer,
Begging
for deliverance.
Our enemies ride against us
To lay waste to our lands
And to ruin Gwynedd,
Powys,
Debeuharth,
To demand our pledge
in trade for peace.
The people of Cymry
Live as slaves
Until the day
Ynys Afallach,
the realm of Avalon,
Awakens Arthur in his mountain.
He will come,
No longer hiding,
The dragon banner raised high,
Submitting to no one,
Whether Saxon or Norman.
The land will be red
With battle and strife.
None will stand against him.
All will fall to their knees before him.
The Cymry will rise,
When Arthur returns.
Entranced, I hardly noticed when he finished. The song ran like one of the poem’s of Taliesin, a sixth century bard who many have confused with Merlin. David had his head up and was studying Merfyn.
“Where did you hear that?” he asked.
“In the north, this past spring,” he said.
David shook his head. “Don’t sing it again.” He stood and went to the door, looking out at the rain, as the fire crackled and sputtered behind him and we stared after him.
Chapter Seventeen
Ieuan
I awoke from a pleasant dream, my arm wrapped around Bronwen for warmth. It had been a long time since I’d slept with any woman. I’d enjoyed wrapping her up in my cloak with me, even if six layers of clothing separated us. I’m not sure how much she enjoyed it, as she was still angry with me for telling Merfyn we were wed and expecting a child. I confess, the notion wasn’t the least bit unpleasant to me.
I turned my head at movement near the door. Dafydd stood in the open door, his back to me. The rain had stopped and the moon was out, playing hide and seek with the clouds. It was brighter outside than in because the fire had gone out. At least it was August, and we weren’t cold.
Prince of Time (Book Two in the After Cilmeri series) Page 14