Footsteps in Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Yes, of course he does,” Anna said. “But Papa told him to hold the north for him and that’s what he is doing.” She checked the sun, trying to estimate how long before Math returned from the day’s patrol.

  Just then, Math himself emerged from the shadows of the castle doorway. Anna gathered herself to push to her feet, but he waved her down. “You need to sit,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?” Anna said.

  “Hereford’s men have surrounded Buellt.”

  “David!” Mom surged to her feet, but Math caught her arms.

  “Rest easy, Mother,” he said. “It was he who sent the messenger. Dafydd was riding with some of his men at the time, and they’ve retreated in good order, south, to find Prince Llywelyn.”

  Mom put her hand to her head and turned away. She walked a few steps, eyes on the ground. “How do I stop caring? How do I stop worrying about him all the time?”

  Math shook his head. “You don’t,” he said simply. “You are his mother.” Math smiled down at Anna and put a hand to her belly.

  Yes, that is to be my fate, then.

  “I need your thoughts on a particular matter,” Math said.

  Mom noted the change in tone and turned back. Math paced around a bit while he gathered his thoughts, clearly restless, and then came to stand in front of Anna.

  “I have a situation,” he said. “Believe it or not, one of my people has murdered another.”

  “A murder!” Anna said. “Who?”

  “The miller and his apprentice. The apprentice claims he was beaten one too many times by the miller so he walloped him on the head with a wooden staff, killing him.”

  “In self-defense?” Anna said.

  Math put out a hand and wobbled it in a ‘so, so’ manner. Anna couldn’t remember if he’d done it before or learned it from her.

  “Have you heard the witnesses?” Mom said.

  “Yes, dozens,” Math said. “They don’t change the issue.” The way the law worked in Wales was that both the murderer and the family of the victim gathered witnesses who were willing to swear either that the murderer was innocent, or that there were extenuating circumstances such that it was not murder. Math’s job, as the judge in the case, was to determine what sort of proof was appropriate, which of the parties were required to produce proof, adjudicate on the case, and then impose the appropriate penalty in accordance with the law.

  “What makes this case different?” Anna said.

  “The incident occurred while the two were traveling, just a few miles east of here.”

  “And?” Mom said.

  “And, as the miller’s family insists the two were in England, they say English law should apply.”

  “Isn’t that unusual?” Anna said.

  “It’s been an unusual summer.” Math glanced at Anna’s belly, his possessive look accompanied by another smile.

  Yes, yes, yes, I’m having your baby. Hush! But Anna smiled too, as if they shared a secret instead of something that was sticking out for all the world to see.

  “So they want the apprentice’s head,” Mom said.

  “By English law, he deserves death. In Wales, he or his family owes a payment of galanas to the miller’s family.”

  “Your inclination is to deny the request of the miller’s family,” Anna said, knowing Math well enough not to ask it as a question.

  “Yes,” Math said. “We’re Welsh, not English.”

  “If they feel that way, they should take it to an English court,” Anna said, “and see if they can get a fair judgment.”

  “They couldn’t,” said Math. “They don’t speak English and the apprentice is under no obligation to submit to an English decision or appear in court, since he can live freely in Wales.”

  “So then why are they doing this?” Anna said.

  Mom saw it. “They’re seeing how strong you are, Math. You’re a new lord to them, and they’re behaving like children, testing their parents and looking for weaknesses.”

  “Yes,” Math said. “That’s what it felt like to me too, but it is possible that the miller’s family is within their rights.”

  “Not in Welsh law,” Anna said. “Papa stood up for our people and our laws when he wrote to Edward and refused to give up Wales for lands in England. The miller’s family knows that.”

  “They are looking out for themselves,” Math said.

  “Then it is your job to look out for them, even if they can’t see it,” Anna said.

  Math held out his hand to Anna and she took it. “Thank you. I knew the answer, but it is helpful to share my concerns with you.” He leaned forward to kiss Anna’s cheek, nodded at Mom, and turned on his heel, striding away as he’d come.

  When he’d gone, Mom spoke again. Anna heard the tears in her voice and moved closer. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible.”

  “Wouldn’t have thought what was possible?” Anna said.

  “That a man of this century would look to his wife as Math looks to you.” She put her arm around Anna’s shoulders and pulled Anna to her. “We’ve all been very, very lucky.”

  “What about Papa?”

  Mom waved her hand dismissively. “He is the Prince of Wales and no youngster. He’s learned over time to listen better, though he still stands on his dignity too much, thinking he has to go it alone.”

  “A bit like David,” Anna said.

  “More than a bit,” Mom said. “I worry about him too; he has far too great a burden for a sixteen-year old boy, and then he takes on more and more with every month that passes.”

  “Nobody sees him as a boy,” Anna said. “He’s a man here, Mom.”

  “And that makes it worse,” Mom said.

  * * * * *

  Aaron returned from Chester a few days later, near the end of June. He was clearly a bit worse for wear. That night, the four friends gathered in Math’s office after the evening meal. Anna sat, very heavily now, on a cushioned bench near the door. That seemed to be all she was doing lately. Sitting; breathing; getting bigger and bigger by the second!

  “As you suggested, my lord, I rode north from Dinas Bran to Ewloe, where I spent the night, before crossing the Dee into Chester. That bridge is well-guarded, but a free flow of Welsh into the city continues.”

  “But not back again,” Anna said, catching the implications of his words.

  Aaron glanced at her. “No.”

  “What happened at the return crossing?” Mom said.

  “The family in front of me, clearly Welsh and with little English, was held up by the guards who reviled them and then appeared ready to arrest the father. So I intervened.”

  “Oh, Aaron,” Mom said. “You could have been killed!”

  “I know,” Aaron said. “But I was angry. I was able to translate the guards’ questions to the Welshman and vice versa. After some dragging of feet, the guards grudgingly let them enter Wales. The issue, apparently, was that the family admitted to being from Rhuddlan.”

  “King Edward’s former village,” Math said.

  “It was petty, and I think the guards were bored and amusing themselves at the family’s expense.”

  “But it wasn’t funny to the family,” Anna said.

  “Nor to me,” Math said. “England is too close to Dinas Bran for me to feel comfortable with English abuse of Welshman on my doorstep.”

  “Did the guards bother you afterwards?” Mom said. “They would have no love for men of your faith either.”

  “I followed the family across the bridge as if I traveled with them,” Aaron said. “It wasn’t as if I was going to tell the guards I was Prince Llywelyn’s personal physician.”

  “Wise man,” Mom said, dryly. “That wouldn’t have gone over well.”

  “I would say that tensions are high,” Aaron said.

  “As high as they were after Edward’s defeat in the Vale of Conwy?” Anna said.

  Aaron nodded. “I’m used to having the priests rail against the Jews, but they’re inciting anger aga
inst the Welsh as well. Chester is only a stone’s throw from Wales. Many Welsh trade in the city, but Chester’s citizens are not as welcoming as they used to be, despite the money they bring in.”

  “Now that is unusual,” said Math.

  “It feels like it does in the lead-up to a pogrom against the Jews,” Aaron said. “My brother reports that Edward and his Marcher lords are very angry—and I fear that they have something up their sleeve, something we’re not going to like.”

  “And to think a Welshman thought to coerce you into judging a murderer based on English law instead of Welsh,” Anna said to Math. “What were they thinking? Why would anyone prefer that Edward ruled here?”

  “Because their lives are circumscribed by the small world they live in,” Math said. “It’s only the princes who’ve ever been able to see beyond that very limited perspective.”

  “And the nobility’s own desire for power is very real,” Mom said. “It has distracted the common people from recognizing their overriding love of Wales.”

  “That’s changing,” Math said. “Llywelyn consolidates his power with each passing week, and more and more of our people are beginning to see what might be possible—what is possible, as Welshmen.”

  “We just need to hang on a while longer,” Anna said.

  “Yes,” Math said, “if Edward gives us the chance.”

  Chapter Ten

  David

  At Crychen Forest, Llywelyn turned north to Buellt. With a small compliment of men—the initial nine, plus ten bowman from Llywelyn’s force—David rode east, into the rugged mountains of Brecon. They would provide a base for his campaign against the castles of Brecon, ruled directly by the Earl of Hereford, and Bronllys and Hay, held by the Clifford family, Hereford’s vassals. The area was heavily wooded, with many rivers and streams. Fortunately, one of his bowmen was from the area and could guide the company. Without him, it would have been much more difficult to maneuver.

  Brecon Castle sat on a hill, overlooking the confluence of the Usk and Honddu rivers, with a little village crouched at its foot. It was dusk when Bevyn, Ieuan and David first gazed down on the village. Though the sun still shone on the castle, shadows had fallen on the huts below. As David looked at it, he had a sinking feeling in his stomach. Many of the villagers worked for the English but were not English themselves. Attacking the castle was one thing, but what they were about to perpetrate on the countryside could be hideous.

  “We need to be disciplined about this,” David said.

  “The men know your mind, my lord,” Bevyn said. “We can begin by firing the fields. The smoke will bring people out of the houses and reduce the loss of life. We’re here to annoy and harass, not to kill Welshman.”

  And so it began. The fields were still green, this being June, so the fire didn’t spread as quickly as it might have in August. As the people left their homes to fight the fires, however, the bowman unleashed their fire arrows—not at the people, but at their houses. This was only the first step. The intent was to cause some damage today, and then retreat, moving down the valley to Bronllys. In a few days, they’d return to cause more damage.

  They didn’t even stay to see the results of their handiwork.

  The next night, it was the same thing again. The town and castle of Bronllys weren’t on their guard, not knowing what David’s men had done to Brecon. They fired the fields and then the village. Like Brecon, Bronllys was built at the confluence of two rivers (the Llynfi and Dulais), so the rivers limited the spread of the fire, but it devastated the village nonetheless. Because only eight miles separated Bronllys and Hay, Bevyn suggested they break the pattern and move on immediately, hitting Hay a few hours before dawn.

  Hay was different from the others in that it was a walled town fronting the Wye River on the English border. Llywelyn Fawr had burned the town, once upon a time, before the stone walls were built. Now it was much more defensible. Bevyn, however, saw no reason for that to stop them. The fields were still outside the walls, and the roof of the buildings were made of thatch. Like the other villages, it burned. The fire arrows arced through the murky sky. They were as beautiful as fireworks, until they hit.

  Even from a distance, David could see the panic they caused. An arrow would hit the thatched roof, begin to smolder, and then catch. The red flames grew, licking at the wood. Each bowman shot only five arrows, but within fifteen minutes, they’d severely damaged the town.

  None of the villagers fought back. How could they? There was nobody to fight as David’s men disappeared as quickly as they’d come, retreating north along the Wye. At dawn, they turned west and picked their way to the wooded foothills just shy of the plateau of Mynydd Epynt. They camped there the rest of that day to give everyone a well-deserved rest, though Bevyn posted sentries and sent out scouts to ensure that nobody followed or discovered them.

  Two scouts traveled to Brecon the next day. On their way there, they met a caravan. Since the burning of the village, Hereford’s castellan had evicted the victims from their land and forced them north, hoping to burden Prince Llywelyn with refugees.

  “What have you done!” one man shouted when the scouts led them to the camp. “Fields burned; homes fired; a lifetime of labor lost in one night!”

  “Are you English or Welsh, man!” barked one of David’s men (another Gruffydd), before the peasant could speak again. “You like living under Bohun’s boot, do you? Even if he has no love for Edward, he should not rule in Wales!”

  The man shook his fist in Gruffydd’s face, not appeased in the slightest.

  “Llywelyn, Prince of Wales, invites you to travel north where you will be made welcome,” Bevyn said, ignoring the man. “Trust that your sacrifice is not in vain, and we will unite all Wales under his banner.”

  “And the end justifies the means,” David said, though only to himself.

  The scouts brought quite different news from the Clifford holdings. The town of Hay was already furiously rebuilding and shoring up its defenses. At Bronllys, the people had deserted the village and moved into the castle proper. Bevyn suggested that they should return there in order to determine their next move. David agreed. The next day they surveyed the damage from a nearby wood.

  “We could take the castle, my lord,” Ieuan said. “The castellan must be an innocent to have brought the villagers inside. He won’t have enough provisions to feed them for long.”

  “Ieuan is right,” Bevyn said. “It would be negligent of us not to take advantage of the opportunity.”

  “We’ll need more men,” Ieuan said.

  “We’ll send word to my father.” David had accepted the idea and was planning ahead. “We’ll keep them penned inside until reinforcements come. When we take it, the man father sends can have the castle as a reward.”

  The messenger rode to Buellt and back in two days. He returned with exactly what David needed: Madoc, a younger son of Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, and a force of fifteen cavalry and thirty foot soldiers Madoc had force-marched the twenty miles from Buellt.

  Madoc brought the news, too, that Buellt was Llywelyn’s once again. Hereford’s men had fought, but only so they might retreat safely back to England. Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, contrary to David’s suspicions, had remained true to Wales.

  Bronllys starved in less than two weeks, far more quickly than Bevyn had hoped, though far longer than David thought he could stand. As it turned out, they’d had food for only eight days and had gone hungry for five. David’s company were lucky, really, to be in the right place at the right time, unlike the people of Bronllys. As David rode beside Madoc through the gatehouse, the smell and the cries turned his stomach.

  “Get these people food!” David ordered.

  Madoc looked at him, surprised at his vehemence. In response, David spoke more harshly to him than perhaps he should have. “These are your people now,” he said. “Their lives are your responsibility. I expect you to see to them as a lord should.”

  Madoc blinked. “Yes, my lord,”
he said.

  The castle priest came out of the chapel, his arms in the air. “My Prince!” he said. “We thank you for our deliverance from the English usurpers. May God bless and keep you and your father, the Prince of Wales.”

  David gazed at the weakened peasants, most of whom hadn’t the energy to stand. Though these people were Welsh, they couldn’t have had any love for him. David felt both guilt and pity. He dismounted and came face to face with the former castellan of Bronllys. He was only a boy, with blonde hair and red-rimmed eyes. He stood before David, ramrod straight, though his chin was set. “My lord. I am Roger de Clifford. I surrender Bronllys to your keeping.”

  “Ah. The Clifford heir,” Bevyn said. “What’s he doing here?”

  Roger’s father, also named Roger, had died during the English defeat at the Menai Straits in November of 1282, and Llywelyn had word of his grandfather’s death in France just recently. A hot rage rose in David. If the fates had been different, this could have been him.

  David’s hands clenched involuntarily and he had to take a deep breath and let it out. Who is most to blame for the current situation? Me for attacking the castle, or him for making an emotional decision by allowing them to seek refuge within it? Perhaps he’d thought Hereford would come to relieve the siege? Perhaps he hadn’t known that his people were better off outside the castle walls? Perhaps, not long ago, David would have chosen as he did.

  “Relieve him of his sword, get him a horse, so that he may find his way to safety in England,” David said to Ieuan.

  “What of my men?” Roger said.

  “They will help us rebuild the village.”

  * * * * *

  David’s company spent the next week rebuilding the houses they’d burned. David was unused to the manual labor and each night he went to bed with aching shoulders. He was glad to do it. He didn’t know if his men felt the same, but there were two sides to every war and it was a lesson he needed not to forget. Unlike his men, David had spent all of his time in Wales on the winning side, without much thought for the peasants who labored for the defeated lords.