One man said, “Our men have reached Dafydd at Dolwyddelan Castle. Others are coming every day. What are the total numbers now?”
“Many thousands, Cadog,” the prince said.
“When do we join them?” another man said. “We can’t allow Edward to come this far into Gwynedd.”
David turned to look at Anna cradling a sleeping Gwenllian, and said in English. “Anna, could you come here for a minute?”
Surprised, Anna rose.
David made room for her in front of the map.
“What is it?” she said.
David spoke in English. “Do you remember what Edward did after—” He stopped with a glance at Prince Llywelyn. “You know.”
“Edward moved down the northern coast and then headed inland, but the prince—” Here too, she stopped. Anna didn’t think he could understand her but didn’t feel comfortable saying the prince was dead when he was standing right in front of them. She looked at David. “Do you think it’s time we talked to Prince Llywelyn about Wales—about the future of Wales? Do you think he would speak with us, away from all these people? In the solar, there’s already discussion that I might be a witch.”
David put an arm over Anna’s shoulder and together they faced the prince. “Could we have a moment of your time, my lord—in private?”
* * * * *
Anna gave Gwenllian to her nanny and then joined Prince Llywelyn in his study. David, Goronwy, and another of Llywelyn’s lieutenants, a young man named Tudur, were there when she arrived. Prince Llywelyn dismissed Tudur and Goronwy and then indicated that David and Anna should sit in two chairs on one side of a table. He sat down across from them, stretched out his legs, heaved a sigh, and fingered the papers in front of him.
Then he straightened, apparently having come to a decision. “It is time for me to tell you what you need to know.”
David and Anna looked at each other in confusion. They’d imagined themselves telling him the very same thing.
“It begins and ends with Marged, your mother, who became my friend many years ago.” Prince Llywelyn used her formal name, instead of Meg which everyone called her at home.
“What?” Anna said.
“What did you say?” David stared at the Prince, his jaw on the floor. “You knew our mother?”
Prince Llywelyn held up his hand. “Let me get this out. You may have wondered why I’ve not expressed more curiosity about your sudden arrival in the meadow at Cilmeri, or pressed you, despite your lack of Welsh, concerning your strange chariot. In truth, it was not the first such vehicle I have seen, and you aren’t the first of your kind I’ve come across. Your mother came to me fifteen years ago, after the death of her husband. You were with her, Anna, and she appeared in front of me one day, just as you and Dafydd did last month.”
Prince Llywelyn held out his hands, upturned towards them. “I’ve put off telling you this because I haven’t known how, but maybe I’d better just say it.”
Anna nodded, trying to be encouraging.
“We loved each other,” he said. “The result was you, Dafydd. You are our son.”
“What?” That was Anna again.
David said nothing, just stared at Prince Llywelyn, his face pale. Was he angry? Afraid? Hurt? Prince Llywelyn’s story seemed impossible, a delusion.
The two continued to gaze at each other in silence.
“Please tell me,” David said at last.
Prince Llywelyn eyed David carefully, but took encouragement from his calm words. “It was close to this time of year, late in the day, and already dark. I stood alone on the ramparts at Criccieth, a seaside castle built by my grandfather. One moment, I was alone with the sea and the birds, and the next, your mother appeared in her blue carriage, her Honda, lights shining from the front. She came out of the woods near the shore and slid down a slope toward the sea. The vehicle became mired in the marsh and began to submerge. Marged had lost control of the vehicle in her world and slid through a barrier into this one. At least that’s how she described it to me.
“Astonished, I raced down the steps, out the postern gate, and onto the shore. Marged had lost consciousness, and her baby—that was you, Anna—was crying in the rear seat. Without knowing how I knew to do it, I opened the door of the chariot and pulled you both free. Soon after, the car sank into the mire and disappeared. I imagine it would still be there, if you knew where to look.”
Prince Llywelyn held David’s eyes as he spoke, though it seemed as if he saw not David, but the past. Anna kept glancing from the prince to David. David tended to be unforgiving when other people fell short of his expectations, even Mom. And this was so out of character for her. As far as Anna knew, she hadn’t dated anyone after their dad died. Or rather her dad died.
“Your mother stayed with me for less than a year, almost until your birth, Dafydd. Then one day I awoke to find her gone and Anna with her. None claimed responsibility for her leaving or had seen her go.”
“She left? Just like that?” David said.
“We ransacked the castle and searched the surrounding countryside for her to no avail. She left me as quickly as she had come.”
“But how do you know that I’m your son?” David said. “You’ve never seen me before, and I am with Anna, not my mother.”
Prince Llywelyn smiled. “It is obvious to anyone with eyes. You, of course—” He turned to Anna, “—look just like your mother. I’m sure others have told you that many times.”
Anna nodded. It was true.
“And you, Dafydd, look much like my father, Gruffydd, and my older brother, Owain. My men noticed it as soon as they saw you standing in the clearing at Cilmeri—thus the rumors which have spread about your identity.”
“I heard of these rumors, just today in the solar,” Anna said to David, not able to render this in Welsh. “I thought Prince Llywelyn was arranging a marriage for me.”
“Whatever you have to tell me about the fate of Wales,” the prince continued, “I already know through Marged. She warned me of the treachery at Cilmeri. She knew of Edward’s deeds and that with my death the dream of an independent Wales would also die.”
“But why didn’t you do anything about it?” David said. “If not for us, you would have died, just as our history books say.”
“It’s one thing to know something, it’s another to avert the course of the future,” Prince Llywelyn said. “These last fifteen years I’ve worked to shore up my castles and consolidate my power—and resist the advances of the English. But each time I tried to do something that seemed to lead toward a different future, others who knew nothing of what I knew would move to ensure that my efforts failed. My own kin betrayed me more than once.”
“That doesn’t explain your presence in that meadow,” David said.
“In early November,” Prince Llywelyn said, “The first rumors reached me that the powerful Mortimer family might consider defecting to my side. On the eighth of December, after our great victory at the Menai Strait, I received a note suggesting exactly that. They offered a meeting outside of Buellt. Your mother had warned me against the meeting, but still, I couldn’t pass it up.”
“So, you went to the rendezvous,” David said.
“Yes, and found it a trap, and one which I allowed them to spring on me,” Prince Llywelyn said. “I did not, however, bring my entire army with me to the south, even though the English thought I did. This small thing I could and did control. The men you met that first day were my entire party, save those who died on the hill before you arrived. The bulk of my army has now reached my brother Dafydd at Dolwyddelan Castle. If Edward chooses to sweep down the valley of the Conwy, he will find a larger force than he expects prepared to stop him.”
Anna had been leaning forward, hanging on the prince’s every word, and with that sat back, heaving a sigh of relief. “At least you could do something to change the future.”
“If you hadn’t appeared when you did, I don’t know how much difference it would have mad
e,” Prince Llywelyn said. “I felt I had to take a chance with the Mortimers, despite your mother’s warning. Unfortunately, I was as unprepared this time as in your world. That’s the reason, however, that when your chariot appeared in the meadow, I knew you, even before you gave me your names.”
He looked at David. “So, Dafydd, may I greet you as my son?”
David sat frozen to his chair and then sprang up. He met the prince half-way around the table. The prince lifted him off his feet and hugged him.
When Prince Llywelyn put David down, he looked at Anna. “Do you remember anything of your time in Wales?”
“My first memories aren’t until David was a baby, except—” She paused, thinking hard, “—did I know Goronwy then?”
Llywelyn smiled. “You did. And you called me Papa. You liked me to put you on my shoulders. You would grasp my hair with your fists to hold on.”
Anna gazed at him through several heartbeats. “I don’t think you want to carry me anywhere, but I will call you Papa again, if you’d like.”
“Yes.” He smiled. “I’d like that.”
Then she skipped back to what he’d said before and jumped to her feet, unable to sit still. “Wait! Wait!” she said, in Welsh, of which she’d understood more in the last five minutes than in the previous five weeks. “You’re saying that Mom and I lived here for a time and then disappeared. Could that happen to David and me? Could it happen to Mom again?”
“When I was with her, we talked about it,” Prince Llywelyn said. “She had no idea why it had happened in the first place, much less how to make it happen again, or how to prevent it.”
“And now it’s happened to us,” David said. “That’s an amazing coincidence.”
Prince Llywelyn looked from David to Anna, amused. “Do you believe in coincidences? I confess, I no longer do.”
Chapter Six
David
I am Prince Llywelyn’s son. I am Mom’s and Prince Llywelyn’s son. David awoke alone—suddenly alone—in his own, solitary, single, never-to-be-shared-with-anyone room in the castle, and found himself choking on semi-hysterical laughter. No longer the son of a man he’d never met, and whom hardly anyone in his family remembered much about or spoke of, he was the son of the Prince of Wales. I am a Prince of Wales!
Admittedly, one of David’s first actions upon entering the room was to throw himself upon the bed, spread-eagled, and rejoice in the comfort of the down mattress. Then, he imagined himself going up to Fychan and mentioning, offhand and casually, that he was late for sword play today because he’d just left his father in his office where they’d discussed important business. His father.
Despite his fantasies, dinner the night before had been the most awkward meal of David’s life. Anna had joined the high table too, sitting between him and Goronwy. She’d seemed completely relaxed and had talked animatedly with Goronwy, whose usually severe expression had been transformed by his joy that Anna remembered him.
David, for his part, hadn’t known how to act. He didn’t know how to be a son; how to be a Prince of Wales. Prince Llywelyn—Father—had asked David to sit beside him, and he’d done so, but he’d knocked over his water glass, dropped parsnips down his front, and generally made a fool of himself within the first five minutes. Father had then grabbed David’s arm as he was reaching for his cup and held it.
He’d smiled, though his eyes were serious. “Are you a different person from this morning, son?”
“No,” David had said, “and yes. I don’t know how to be a prince.”
“Don’t think of it that way,” Father said. “Just be my son.”
“I don’t know how to be that either,” David said. “I’ve never had a father.”
“Then be the man you were this morning,” Father said. “That man is a Prince of Wales.”
That was an oddly comforting thought, other than his use of the word ‘man’, which was still taking some getting used to. Then Father spoke again. “When your mother returned to your world, she didn’t marry?”
Anna stilled beside him at the question.
“No,” David said.
“Ahh,” Father sat back in his chair. Then David thought he heard him mutter under his breath, “Good,” but he wasn’t sure. Did he still think of her too, or was it just that now I was here, he was thinking of her? He had married someone else.
Anna poked David’s leg under the table and leaned closer. “His whole life, Wales, and the Middle Ages is what Mom studies! She talks about him all the time and nobody suspects a thing!”
“There’s no way we could have known,” David said, “but it feels like we’ve been blind.”
“It was your heritage,” Anna said, “but she couldn’t tell you anything about it.”
“And how does it make you feel?” David said, suddenly concerned. “We’re only half-siblings now.”
“I’m still your older sister,” she said, starch in her voice. “Don’t think just because you’re the Prince of Wales that it makes any difference to me.”
Father overheard. “You’re a princess, my dear. I’ll not hear otherwise.”
Anna ducked her head and focused on her food.
Ha! “Accept it, Anna,” David said, leaning close again. “It might get you out of some sewing.”
She didn’t say anything after that, but she was smiling.
* * * * *
The next morning, David was pulling on his shirt, knowing he’d slept far too late, when a tentative knock came at the door.
“Come in!” David said.
Owain and four of the other boys from David’s contingent pushed open the door and stood hesitating in the doorway. David straightened and they studied each other for a long ten seconds.
Owain was the first to speak. “My lord,” he said, and David felt that the words came awkwardly to his lips. They felt awkward to hear. “Sir Bevyn requests your presence at the practice ring.”
David raised his eyebrows. “Is that what he said?”
Owain shifted from one foot to another. “Um, no, my lord.”
“So what he really said was ‘tell his lordship to get his noble ass out here right now or I’ll make him wish he’d woken earlier, Prince of Wales or no Prince of Wales.’”
Despite themselves, everyone laughed. David laughed with them and waved them into the room. He’d tried to do Bevyn’s accent and gruff voice and gotten it nearly right. Now, with the tension broken, the boys spread out. One stoked the fire in the grate, another sat gingerly upon the mattress.
“I think we’ll sleep with you from now on,” a boy named Gruffydd said. “This is much nicer than the barracks.”
“Why didn’t you tell us you were Prince Llywelyn’s son?” Owain said. Everyone stopped moving. David looked up from pulling on his boots—no longer the twenty-first century ones, but a new pair the cobbler had finished last week. What a question!
“I didn’t know,” he said. “My mother never told me.” David and Llywelyn had discussed how to respond to this before they parted after dinner and had decided that they’d hit as close to the truth as they could.
The boys looked nonplussed. “Why not?”
“I can’t ask her,” David said. “All I know is that she sent me here to be with the prince, and he waited to tell me until he thought the time was right.”
“No wonder you’re so smart.” That was Owain again. David didn’t want to hear that, though, because dwelling on their differences would only create a bigger barrier between them and him. They were all noble too, but there was the nobility—and then there was the prince’s son. David might have been a prince for only twelve hours, but he knew enough about it to know that.
Bevyn waited for them in the courtyard, his hands on his hips, and a distinct smirk on his face. If David was expecting deference, he didn’t get it.
“You’re late,” he snapped.
“I’m sorry, sir,” David said. “I’ve not slept by myself here before, and didn’t realize that I wouldn’t
wake in time.”
“You missed mass and breakfast,” Bevyn said. “Here.” He threw David a roll. “Come,” he said.
“Thanks,” David said to his back. He inspected the food and saw there was both cheese and meat inside. As always, Bevyn treated David with a complicated mix of causticity and muted affection.
“Where are Fychan and Dai?” Gruffydd said from behind David.
“Gone,” Bevyn said, “along with a dozen others. We’re gathering at Dolwyddelan.” He looked back and his sneer was almost a smile. “In two days’ time, we all will leave here to join them—even you, Gruffydd.”
Everyone saddled up. As David mounted Taranis, a stranger led his horse from the stables. Bevyn trotted over to introduce them. “Prince Dafydd, please meet Mathonwy ap Rhys Fychan, your cousin. Lord Mathonwy, this is Prince Dafydd.”
“My lord.” Mathonwy bowed. “Please call me Math.”
“Dafydd,” David said. They grasped forearms in greeting.
“It is my honor to serve you,” Math said.
And then David realized that Math meant what he said. “My father brought you here to watch over me, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” Math said, as if there was nothing more to it than that.
Yet David didn’t have to ask why. I am a Prince of Wales. Math mounted his horse and rode out of the gatehouse at David’s side. David tried to think of something to say. Math was a lot older—maybe twenty, six feet tall, with black hair, blue eyes, but no mustache. That was unusual enough to comment upon, but David thought the first question out of his mouth shouldn’t be, “why don’t you have a mustache?”
Instead, David said, “So you’re my cousin?”
“I am the son of Prince Llywelyn’s sister, Gwladys. She died at my birth, and I lost my father ten years later. I’ve lived in your father’s household since then. I’ve just come from the north, from Ewloe, one of the castles I hold for your father against the English.”
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