“I was just saying that I’m not well acquainted with the people over whom Math rules,” Anna said. “I didn’t grow up here, and both they and I know it.”
“Yes, but democracy?” Aaron said. “There hasn’t been a true democratic state since Athens was defeated by Macedon fifteen hundred years ago. Where did you learn of its principles?”
“I don’t know if this is a conversation we should be having, Aaron,” Mom said. “I realize that there are times when my children and I make you uncomfortable with the extent of our differences, and I’m afraid that this just needs to be one of those times.”
Aaron’s face took on a look that Anna could only describe as fierce. It struck her that he was deeply insulted. He thought Mom was disparaging his intelligence. Anna wanted to tell him a little piece of truth, but didn’t even know how to begin.
David must have thought the same thing, because he prodded Taranis closer. “Listen to me, Aaron. We are from a country which is governed by a democracy as much as it can be. It’s a land where all citizens are educated. My mom taught history at a university. There, I was not known as a prince’s son, but as a schoolboy. There, much of the knowledge you’ve spent a lifetime acquiring, is learned routinely by ten-year-olds. We are here by chance and happenstance. If you can bear it, without thinking us witches or devils, someday I will tell you more. I tell you this now so that you won’t be offended by our knowledge or our ideas—or by our secrets.”
David pulled at Taranis’ head and spurred him forward, leaving his mother and Anna to deal with Aaron’s questions David had unleashed.
“Where ... where are you from?” Aaron said.
Anna turned her head, following David with her eyes, not wanting to look at Aaron.
“Every day we travel a little closer to it,” Mom said.
The future, Mom means. Except that we’ll never reach it, not from here.
Chapter Six
David
As the company traveled inland from the sea, the people of Gwynedd flocked to them. With every day that passed, the news of their coming spread. Most days, a following of men, women, and children traveled with them for a few miles and then would melt into the landscape, only to be replaced by others who strode, rode, and sidled out of the forest to walk for a time at David’s side. It seemed the entire countryside was on the move.
David’s presence was a novelty and it drew people to them. Everyone wanted to touch him, talk to him, and tell him their life story. Of course, David would be Prince of Wales one day, but because he was young and had less authority than an older man, the people showered more welcome and love on him than his father might have experienced.
In the first three days, David mediated everything from a dispute over a fishing line, to a marauding bull, to a marriage contract for a young couple whose fathers couldn’t agree on price. That was not something David had encountered in twenty-first century America!
But marauding bulls aside, David thought being the Prince of Wales was okay. The thirteenth century would never give him a life of luxury and ease, but he’d adjusted to it. He was busy. He was needed. For the first time in his life, he had both parents in the same place. Perhaps David was too young to be a knight, really, but he was a knight, and he would do his duty as the Prince of Wales. For the most part, that aspect of the job was within his scope.
Although the responsibilities of command had ceased to be quite as intimidating, the need to kill other men was another matter. It wasn’t really that life was worth less here, though it was, but that lives were taken more easily here. Babies died. Children died. Women died in childbirth all the time, though Mom and Aaron were working on that. David had overheard her and Anna talking about it, and David tried not to dwell on the worry he heard in Mom’s voice. Anna was happy and optimistic, but Elinor, Gwenllian’s mother, had died in childbirth and David didn’t think that knowledge was ever far from Mom’s mind.
The men with whom David worked generally avoided thinking about death too, not out of fear, though there was that too, but because it went without saying that death rode at their shoulders every day. Sometimes, through the loud talk and bravado, a soldier was able to admit his fear—and that men died from the most minor injuries and illnesses in addition to dying in battle.
David had never been as sick and scared in his life as when his company attacked the English at the Vale of Conwy. Bevyn had told him that the first time he lost it, the men would respect him and understand. He’d been only fourteen then, after all. But there was a fine line between disliking the need to take a life, and being thought weak. Weakness is unforgivable in battle. That was David’s new reality. And that was something that haunted him constantly. Killing, like anything else, became easier the more a man did it.
What kind of man will I be when it begins to come easily? What kind of prince can I be if it never does? Can God forgive me for offenses that I repeat over and over, and can I ever forgive myself?
Now David understood why the Catholic Church prescribed confession. A man could tell a priest his sins and walk away clean every time.
When they reached Dolwyddelan, people set up huts, tents, and even a small fair where summer grazing normally took place. David had thought that their stay would be something of a rest, but there were even more demands on his time and more people who wanted to see him. Mom tried to ease the burden, but only the women wanted to talk to her.
They followed the same procedure after the company left Dolwyddelan, following the thirty-five mile spine across Gwynedd to Dinas Bran. The Roman road on which they’d traveled to get to Dolwyddelan didn’t go that way, so they took the Welsh track that was as old as the hills it wended between. Each day, they set up camp in the early afternoon and spent time with whatever inhabitants were in the area, before moving on the next day to another location.
David had followed the same routine every day after the evening meal. In the hours between dinner and bed, he would walk among his men, sharing food or a joke with one group or another. He’d read once that this was good practice for a commander, and a good commander was what he was trying to become. Bevyn knew this was his habit. At the end of every evening, David would walk a short distance from the camp to a nearby stream to wash before returning to the tent to sleep.
The third night out from Dolwyddelan, David left the circle of tents and strolled under the trees and down a little hill to a creek. After he washed, he turned around to find Marchudd next to him. Marchudd was a member of David’s guard: a relatively young man, perhaps ten years older than David, who kept to himself for the most part.
“My lord,” Marchudd said. “If you’ll come with me, there’s something I think you should see.”
Not wanting to offend him, David followed him thirty yards further downstream. At a small ford, Marchudd stopped. David looked inquiringly at him, waiting. Marchudd’s eyes focused on something behind David. Before David could turn—
Thunk!
David awoke, trussed, a gag in his mouth and his head pounding.
“You fool!” a voice said. “You hit him too hard. If he can’t ride, we’re lost.”
“If he can’t ride, we’ll kill him and have an end to this farce,” Marchudd said.
Hearing that, David forced himself to focus. He lay in the bed of a cart that jolted along a trail in the dark. David surveyed the sky above him. Scattered clouds blew among the stars, although no moon showed. Despite the darkness, David’s captors seemed to know their way well enough.
“The King wants him alive!” the first voice said. “I want my money.”
David strove to hold himself still, but his captors must have sensed a change in him.
“Make a sound and I’ll kill you right now. Nod if you understand.”
David nodded, groaning inwardly. He recognized that voice too. It belonged to Fychan, the boy David had bested a lifetime ago at Castell y Bere.
“Hurry,” the first speaker said, snickering, and David knew the voice now as tha
t of Fychan’s friend, Dai.
David cursed his naïveté and stupidity. He’d thought—everyone had thought—that he was safe in Gwynedd, among people who supported him and more importantly, supported his father. That was a mistake.
The cart stopped. Marchudd grabbed David’s feet and Fychan his arms and they unceremoniously half-dragged, half-carried him out of the cart. Fychen threw David over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, though he wouldn’t have called it that. He moved swiftly, not quite running, while David bounced and bobbed on his shoulder, upside down.
What irked David most was that his captors were Welsh. Father was trying to build a network of Welsh to support Wales, and here were three Welshman working against him! Why couldn’t they understand that the interests of Wales might supersede their own? Perhaps David was a fine one to talk because the interests of Wales were his own; but what they could hope to gain financially from turning him over to the English was dwarfed by the horror that subjugation to Edward would bring. How could they not know it?
Fychan went on this way for two minutes, with David slowly suffocating in his gag. Upside down, it was hard to breathe through his nose. All the blood had rushed to his head and made him congested. David kicked out at Fychan. I refuse to die so ignomiously!
Before that could happen, fortunately, Fychan stopped and dropped David to his feet. With a thrust of his knife, Dai slashed through the bonds around David’s ankles.
“Get up,” Fychan said.
“Why?” David said, though it came out muffled in the gag.
“On the horse!” Fychan shoved David’s shoulder and David staggered to his feet. His hands were still tied so they had to boost him up, pushing and shoving until he balanced in the saddle.
With this change in perspective, the ‘farce’ to which Marchudd was referring became clear. David was a big person. At six feet two inches, he was taller than most men, and at sixteen and a half, stronger than most too. His abduction had been well planned and executed, but once he was up on the horse, David began to think he had a chance to live through the night. What did they think? That they could get him to ride quietly with them merely because they asked?
They must not have felt too sure of themselves either, because, standing there under the trees and only a short distance from David’s camp, they began to argue.
“Have you lost your nerve, then?” Dai said in a stage whisper. “We must make haste!”
“Don’t fear for me, Dai,” Fychan said. “He’s so scared I’m surprised he hasn’t pissed his pants. There is nothing to him, now that he has no one to protect him.”
“The prince knighted him on the field of battle!” Dai said. “He’s killed many English.”
“Fairy tales!” Fychan said.
“Enough!” Marchudd said. “We’ll bring him to Wrexham as we agreed. King Edward will reward us handsomely for his capture. Edward would prefer him alive and undamaged, if possible, so I suggest you get moving. The boy will be missed soon and we need to be well away before then.”
With that, Fychan and Dai mounted their horses and Dai pulled David’s forward. A cold feeling settled in David’s stomach. It was a matter of weighing the immediate danger he was in, with the unknown variables involved in escape. At the very least, David could simply slide off the horse in a heap on the ground, but Marchudd might kill him rather than leave him there alive. Marchudd wouldn’t want to risk his own capture no matter what.
If they were caught, Llywelyn would indeed hang them. David remembered what his father had said more than two years ago when David had defeated Fychan in that fight: “There is a time for making an example of a man, and a time for showing mercy ... A leader has to be cold in order to mete out true justice.” His father would have no mercy for these men. David couldn’t afford it either.
David decided to keep his options open and wait for a good opportunity to escape. They trotted on through the night, and eventually the sky began to lighten. Where were his rescuers? As the morning wore on, David began to think they weren’t coming. He had excellent trackers among his guard, but given the efficiency of his imprisonment, they may have left few traces. Bevyn would try to find David, but the longer he was captive, the less likely it was that Bevyn would succeed.
By the time they stopped for food and water, David’s entire body ached with the effort of staying upright. The numbness in his arms had spread such that his upper body trembled from holding the same position for so many hours and his mouth and jaw had swollen inside the gag. Fortunately, Marchudd deemed them far enough away from any possible help that when he pulled David from the horse, he removed the gag too.
With a grin, Fychan grabbed David’s hair and tipped his head back to pour water down his throat. David coughed and sputtered, but Fychan kept pouring. David managed to swallow some, but most of it spilled down his front. Dai laughed at his predicament.
David ignored him. “I need to relieve myself,” he said, once he could speak again.
“Piss on yourself, if you have to,” Fychan said.
Marchudd sighed and corrected him. “If he fouls himself, we’ll have to smell him all the way to Wrexham. Is that what you want?”
Taking a knife from its sheath at his waist, he came over to David. He first put it at David’s throat. “I will not hesitate to kill you,” he said. “Do you believe me?”
“Yes,” David said.
Marchudd nodded and with a flick of his knife, cut the bonds from David’s wrists. David relaxed his shoulders which was a tremendous relief, but his hands began to hurt as blood flowed back into them. Marchudd nudged him forward, his knife to David’s back, and David walked a short way from the camp. In his head, David ran through the various techniques he’d learned in karate to deal with an assailant with a knife. Unfortunately, in every one, the person without a knife had a high chance of getting cut.
Do I want to risk it? What would Father have me do? David decided to wait a while longer. Maybe tonight, if they were to rest, he would have a better chance when his captors were tired and not as attentive.
Marchudd rebound David’s hands, in front of him this time, and they continued the journey. David’s company had traveled only fifteen miles from Dolwyddelan before he was captured, so they’d had quite a distance still to go to Dinas Bran. Marchudd had chosen a more northerly path, angling away from the road to Dinas Bran and steering towards Wrexham instead.
The path followed the land up and down, through wooded patches and around craggy blocks. When towards sunset it started to rain, a mixture of hopelessness and hope surged through David. The rain would obliterate their tracks, but David might have an easier time getting away if his captors were miserable.
The rain lasted for several hours, into the evening. Just as David was thinking they’d never take a break, both Marchudd and the rain stopped. After some struggle, Dai managed to start a fire and Marchudd distributed rations from his saddle bags.
“We sleep only a few hours,” he said, after untying David’s hands and tossing him a dry piece of bread and a skin of water.
David ate and drank what there was, grateful for the fire and the brief rest. Within a few minutes, he lay on his side, waiting for his captors to settle. He hoped Marchudd would overlook the fact that Dai had done a poor job of retying his hands after they’d eaten. David was mildly annoyed they thought so little of him, but they must have thought they knew these mountains too well for David to escape.
Fychan had the first watch. Dai and Marchudd fell asleep immediately, or they were good at faking it. David closed his eyes, feigning sleep despite the exhaustion that begged for oblivion. His adrenaline kept him from dropping off. Through slitted eyes, he watched Fychan poke at the fire with a stick. He kept his sword sheathed but held a bare knife on his lap.
David lay still for close to half an hour. Gradually, Fychan’s head began to nod. David didn’t move. Fychan’s head fell forward. Terrified that Fychan would wake up and he would lose his only chance, David sat up. He
got to his feet, daring to believe his luck, and was just taking his first step away from the fire when Fychan shot across the five feet between them. With his right hand he grabbed David’s throat and pressed the knife to David’s belly with his left.
“You thought to leave us, did you?” he whispered.
David could barely speak through the pressure on his throat. “I have to relieve myself,” David said. “Would you rather I did that on you?”
Fychan squeezed a little harder, and then relaxed his hold. As David gagged and choked for breath, he twisted the knife into David’s stomach, drawing blood.
“I should kill you now,” he said. “When you bested me before, it wasn’t a fair fight. You only win when you cheat.”
“So give me a blade and I’ll fight you fairly!” David hissed back, straightening his shoulders and trying to get away from his knife. He left his hands in the loosened rope but held the end in his fist in case it came undone before he was ready.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Fychan matched David’s step backwards with one of his own. “You’re worth more alive than dead, and if we fought, you wouldn’t live to see tomorrow.”
They glared at each other until David forced himself to back down. He let his shoulders slump and tried to look as defeated as possible. Fychan pounced gleefully on his apparent capitulation.
“Ha!” he said. “You’ll never be the Prince of Wales. We’ll not abide a weakling such as you!”
“I need to piss,” David said, his head down, though he watched Fychan through his lowered lashes.
“Over there.” Fychan jerked his head at a nearby tree.
David walked toward it. Fychan followed, the knife in his right hand, held lightly at David’s back. Deciding he could abide this no longer, David took two long strides before Fychan could stop him.
“Hey!” he said.
In the split second it took for Fychan to reach him, David spun around, bashing his right elbow into the flat of the knife. David followed the spin with a quick grab to Fychan’s knife hand. Fychan didn’t have time to react before David had twisted Fychan’s arm up and around, using his momentum to leverage him to his knees.
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