Uneasy Lies the Crown

by N. Gemini Sasson

  Carmarthenshire, Wales — Spring, 1403

  In the broad Tywi Valley, which meandered lazily through a jumble of low emerald hills in Carmarthenshire, the army of Wales spread like a vast city sprung up overnight. They had grown bold in their movements at times, less inclined to seek cover, quicker to strike and resolute when they did so. But there was a delicate balance to be struck between decisiveness and patience, for Owain knew that Harry’s soldiers had not been paid in some time. Their food would be rationed; discontent would burgeon. If he drew things out long enough, that could all work to his advantage.

  Steadily, Owain was gaining an advantage. His men were well fed and well provisioned. They were in bold spirits. His newly vowed supporters had proven faithful. Some noteworthy warriors had joined his flock—men of station, influence, wealth and wisdom. The Welsh were no longer a band of roving brigands. They were an army, fully armed and numbering in the tens of thousands.

  Sunset was in its blazing glory when the night’s song began. Walking amongst his men, Owain was drawn on by the silken strands of a female voice, one that he had not heard before, he was certain, for he would never have forgotten it. He wandered past the tents and threaded between the woolen blankets spread around small cooking fires. His soldiers smiled and bowed in salutation. Owain put on no lofty airs. He had been the same in the early days with his family at Sycharth, when people would travel from across the land to share in the merrymaking of his hall. But somehow that all faded from his thoughts when he came to the clearing from where the golden song emanated.

  Her hair tumbled to the small of her back in rebellious, satiny ringlets of jet black. She was dark of complexion and small, betraying her ancient Celtic blood. As she sang, her fine hands floated from her sides and gave her the likeness of a songbird stretching its wings as it trilled. Perched on a felled tree stump, her bare feet peeked from beneath a plain dress of green, tattered at the hem.

  Owain was mesmerized by her sorrowful ballad—a song of lovers too often and too long parted. Iolo plucked his harp softly, his notes encircling her heavenly voice. Owain did not feel the first tug at his sleeve.

  “You like her?”

  Owain turned to see Rhys’s cheeks lifted by a smile as huge as his lips could manage. He nodded. “The sight of her makes me drunker than any wine.”

  The corners of Rhys’s mouth sank. “Her singing... you like her singing?”

  “Her singing, most definitely.” He leaned against the trunk of a solitary willow, its yellow catkins hanging low. “But I am certain there is more of her worth liking than that.” It made him feel young again, this gush of lustiness. She was delicate of form, yet incredibly powerful in the conveyance of her song. What an exotic beauty. Helen of Troy could not have rivaled her.

  “Who is she?” he whispered.

  “My daughter Nesta,” Rhys said.

  Owain blinked. “Your daughter? She cannot be. She’s too beautiful.”

  Fists clenched, Rhys bristled visibly. “Have I ever struck you before, Owain?”

  “You have. On several occasions.”

  “Have I ever struck you when we were sober?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “You’re damn close to feeling my fist breaking your nose.”

  Owain grabbed his belly as he shook with laughter. “Oh, try. You couldn’t reach that high.”

  Rhys’s fist reeled around and struck Owain on the underside of his chin. Owain stumbled backward. When he finally caught his balance he stared wide-eyed at his friend. He swallowed back the blood that trickled from his tongue. “You missed.”

  “Keep your eyes from her. I know you,” Rhys spun away, mumbling. “All you have to do is look a woman’s way and the next morning she’s feeding you cherries from her fingertips.”

  In his youth, Owain had been too tongue-tied around girls to do more than draw their glances, but of late there had been no shortage of flirtatious maidens darting around him. He would not say so, but he found the attention invigorating and flattering, almost intoxicating. He wrapped an arm over his friend’s shoulder. “You’re talking about yourself again. Who is it that boasts about kitchen maids and shepherdesses from town to town? And wasn’t it you who sent that dark-haired girl to me at Plynlimon and —”

  “You mean Madrun?”

  “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  “Not to you, I suppose.”

  “Whatever happened to her? I couldn’t find her after awhile.”

  “She went home, Owain, to marry some local boy, a farmer. She tired of you calling her by your wife’s name, she told me.”

  The two men fell silent as Nesta’s song filled the air. By now, a lute-player had joined her and Iolo and she was singing a merry tune. Around her, a few girls had begun to twirl in a dance and the men clapped and whooped.

  Rhys sighed and gazed at the darkening hills. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?”

  “She is. Be proud, my friend, be proud. What a joy to behold. She is proof there is yet heaven in the world.”

  Nesta’s lovely strains did not waver as Gruffydd, who had been standing among her admirers, reached out and tucked a single daisy behind her ear. Gruffydd bowed before her and plucked up her dainty hand to place a kiss upon her knuckles. Nesta’s eyes swept over the crowd and as they met with Owain’s her voice lifted up and her smile broadened.

  “It would seem your son thinks so, as well,” Rhys said, not noticing his daughter’s exchange with Owain. “I should introduce her to your boys. Gruffydd, he needs to cease pining for that daughter of Grey’s—she’s long gone. And Maredydd, ah, he’s a bright lad. Keeps his wits about him when everything around him is in mayhem. He’ll outshine you one day soon, he will.”

  “Outshine me soon? Are you saying I’m getting too old?”

  “Nothing of the sort. We’re both fresh as spring lambs.” Rhys leaned toward Owain. “Then again, you’re soon to be a grandfather now, are you not? I hear Catrin is with child. She must have conceived on her wedding night—or before.”

  Owain gave him a sharp look. “They wasted no time, I grant you. It’s breaking Edmund’s heart not to be with her. Most men would wish for a son, but he wants a daughter with a head full of golden curls, just like Catrin’s.” He remembered thinking the same before Margaret gave birth to Catrin. It had been weeks since he had written his wife or heard from her in return. How quickly the twenty years had passed since he had opened his shutters to find her on the London street below. How magical it had been to gaze upon her from across a room and feel the rhythm of her heart echoing inside his own chest. But now... now they were worlds apart. Looking into Marged’s eyes was like dropping a stone into a bottomless well. He could not even hold her close without the wrenching pangs of guilt reminding him that he had almost caused her to die.

  Holding out a flask, Rhys elbowed him. “A bit of fire down your throat to celebrate, old man?”

  “I would rather compliment your daughter... if you trust me, that is?”

  Rhys groaned, and then chugged from the flask. “Ah, come on then. Devil take you, anyway.”

  They were edging through the crowd of Nesta’s admirers when Edmund came flying forward. Breathless, he pushed a slightly crumpled letter into Owain’s hands.

  “What is this?” Owain asked. But the look on Edmund’s face betrayed the ill news. Owain cast his eyes down and as he absorbed the words there his hands began to shake with rage.

  Rhys peered past his arm. “Curse him.”

  Gruffydd, who had noticed his brother-in-law’s frantic race through the camp, approached his father with trepidation. Maredydd was close behind him.

  “What is it?” Gruffydd said. “Is mother well? Sion and little Mary? Catrin?”

  “They are all fine. But our home...” Owain said, his voice quavering, “is no longer. Sycharth and Glyndyfrdwy both are but piles of ashes left to the ravishes of the wind. Prince Harry has descended like a winter gale upon Wales.”

  Carefully, Ow
ain rolled the letter up and tucked it into his belt. “Fetch Gethin at once. Rhys, I want an accurate count of our numbers. We will reinforce our siege parties at Harlech and Aberystwyth. Send word to Tudur, posthaste. He will be greatly relieved. Tomorrow at daybreak, we head for Llandovery. I will send another force on to Llandeilo. Gruffydd, you will accompany Rhys there. Maredydd, Edmund, you will follow me. If Henry and his son Harry want all out war, they shall have it.”

  Edmund’s eyes sank with the blow. The babe was due any day now; he would not be at Catrin’s side to see their first child born.

  After a hasty meeting with his commanders, Owain wandered from his tent into the starlight and sat down on the riverbank. Silver moonbeams glistened at the water’s surface and the gentle murmur of its gurgling brought him back to his childhood days. He did not hear the rustle of bare feet in the grass until she was before him.

  Nesta’s smile broke through the darkness. “So, you are him—Owain Glyndwr? The glorious warrior? You are tall, I can see that even though you’re sitting, but I had imagined some giant with a lightning rod as his spear.” She sank to the ground and deftly arranged her skirts in a swirl around her.

  “Such glory is spun from bards’ songs,” he said. “’Tis a myth, nothing more.”

  “But you are no myth. It was not so long ago that the bards sang of Cadwaladr who drove out the Saxons. He was a real man, like you—a conquering hero fed by great vision. Now the name of Owain Glyndwr is upon their lips. They call you their Lord, their Prince of Wales... Y Mab Darogan, Son of Prophecy. I hear it everywhere. They are calling upon you to take the crown and lead them.”

  He shook his head. “A lofty calling... but you see, crowns never came to princes of Wales without great bloodshed. I am not that heartless or ambitious to seek it. It’s a life I would sooner not lead.”

  She drew her knees up and hugged them against the cool air. “So you would rather live as you did before? A servant to Marcher lords? A slave to the wagging finger of a king?”

  “Neither of those. I simply want the English gone from Wales, but I don’t long for any diadem, especially not one as transient as the mist in the valleys. If I could declare peace through courts and laws, by the saints, I would do it. What I have to do, however, is not what I would want to do. Peace and freedom are the products of war. And I fear their price will fall on my head, crown or not.”

  “A heavy price indeed, but there is yet joy and beauty in the world—and hope, is there not?”

  He tried to hide his smile from her. He had said much the same to Rhys in regard to her. How quickly she had wiped away his cares by reminding him.

  She turned her face toward the firmament so that starlight glittered upon her brow like a circlet of diamonds. “Yes, maybe it’s hope they most want and need—and who will give them that if you do not?”

  “But why me?”

  “Who else? Does it matter if the prophecies are true or not? If the people believe them, if they believe you are Y Mab Darogan, then let them.”

  He nearly asked her if she believed it. Certainly, he did not. No, he was nothing more than a country landowner of a long and distantly noble lineage who had been robbed of his lands. And even though he acknowledged her point—that the Welsh cause was worthless without a leader and he had fallen into that role, whether by design or accident—it did not sit comfortably on his shoulders. But if he listened to her long enough, he might find ways to use it to his advantage to ensure the freedom of Wales.

  No, he must not allow her adulation to inflate his own self-image. Still, she was alluring. “You’re as clever as you are beautiful.”

  “And you, my lord, are drunk.”

  He hadn’t had a drop from Rhys’s flask, nor any drink that whole day. But yes, he felt drunk, sitting there next to her. Perhaps he should walk it off, clear his head a bit? “I have it in mind for a stroll along the river. Will you come with me?”

  He stood, towering above her, and reached down. She fitted her tiny hand inside his strong grasp in answer.

  As they strolled beside the river, Nesta moved closer so that his knuckles brushed her arm.

  “I wonder,” she mused, “what will happen after you rid this land of its English demons?”

  He shrugged. “What do you mean?”

  “How many years ahead have you thought, my lord? A general can lead an army to victory, but a country is made of more than just soldiers. I, for one, carry no bow or sword. What will you do when the English have gone?”

  “Go home... and live in peace.”

  “But they will come back eventually, don’t you think?”

  Owain stopped, turning to face the river as he weighed her question.

  Nesta twirled around and planted herself before him, the riverbank dropping away steeply just inches behind her. She tilted her head to pose an even more difficult question. “How will you keep them away? Beg for their kindness?”

  “I will do”—he stepped closer to her—“what I have already done... for as long as I need to do it.”

  “Hmm, then you will not have your peace after all.” Nesta tapped a finger in the middle of his chest. “Something tells me there is more to you than being a soldier.”

  Owain pushed away a curling strand of hair that had blown across her cheek. Leaning closer, his lips parted, seeking a kiss, but she shoved her finger hard against his chest, pushing him back.

  “If you want your peace to last, take the crown. Build a nation stronger than its army—strong from within. You could be that strength.”

  She took her kiss then, as if she would be the one to determine where and when. She parted from him silently, her hand trailing down over his chest, a lingering look between them.

  As Owain lay awake in his tent that night, a tiny seed took root in his mind. If he accepted the crown, as some had called on him to do, he could bring an end to untold centuries of wars and raids. He could bring lasting peace and knowledge through places of worship and learning, by maintaining a trained army, by making laws to protect the people’s rights, by forming alliances that would open Wales to trade and prosperity. For hours he stared at the walls of his tent, a gentle breeze fluttering against it, as he thought on a whole new world. It seemed he had barely closed his eyes before Rhys was shaking him from slumber.

  While the rising sun was but a sliver of gold above the eastern hills, before Owain set off with his men, Nesta appeared at the edge of camp. She did not approach him while his squire slipped his surcoat over his armor and handed him his helmet. She said nothing while he climbed up on his mount. She just stood there watching, her fingers twined together before her.

  When he took up his sword that day, it was no longer merely to chase English soldiers from Wales. A larger purpose, a grander scheme now lay ahead.

  Iolo Goch:

  Over eight thousand spearmen strong, we took not only Llandovery and Llandeilo, but also Newcastle Emlyn and Carmarthen. In the early weeks of summer, an envoy was dispatched to the Percys with news of Owain’s conquests and an invitation which was sure to shake the very roots of English nobility.

  Soon afterward, Owain received a reply: Hotspur and his father agreed that the time to strike against the king was now. The Percys had already sent word to Henry that his aid was required to put down the Scots—bait meant to draw the king away from Wales.

  Evidently, Henry still trusted the Percys, for he brushed aside the urgently scribbled appeals from the panic-stricken English gentry on the Welsh border. What the king was unaware of as he began the ride north to join the Percys against Scotland, was that they were now fully in league with Owain and the Earl of Douglas and were themselves on their way southward.

  34

  Carmarthen, Wales — Summer, 1403

  Owain’s temporary residence was a spacious half-timbered house less than a mile from Carmarthen. He had spared it from the torch in a moment of forethought, because it reminded him vaguely of Sycharth with its sheep pens and barns clustered about. For week
s he had longed for a bed contained within a room of solid walls, for there was too little privacy to be found in a tent surrounded by other tents. And the need for privacy was an increasing concern.

  It had happened so... naturally, so unforced. Like bending to drink from a stream when his throat was parched. One night, he had been lying in his tent, unable to sleep, his senses a heightened whirl of awareness. The air was hot and breezeless. Sweat trickled over his temple, pooled on his breastbone, and dampened his clothes. Sitting up, he had ripped his tunic off and tossed it to the ground. It did not help. There were no books to read, no hall to wander into to demand a tankard of ale.

  Then, from somewhere in the camp, the sound of lowered voices had drifted to him. Perhaps he could talk with his men, encourage them? Too hot to don his shirt, Owain left it where it lay in a crumpled wad and stepped outside. He stretched his arms wide and his spine cracked. The bones of an aging man, he thought.

  He had not gone one step when he saw Nesta. Whether she had been there waiting for him or merely happened by did not matter. She was there and he wanted her, had since he first saw her. Wanted her so much his chest ached. Without saying a word, she came to him, joined him inside, and stayed with him until the first birds heralded the dawn.

  Arranging to be with her had not been easy in a city of tents, where doors did not exist and walls were no thicker than a sheet of oiled canvas. He might have been less secretive of his trysts with her, if not for Gruffydd. Not since Elise had his eldest son taken interest in a woman. Until now.

  Owain stumbled into his room at Carmarthen bleary-eyed and angst-ridden. He found Nesta there, although it was not her usual habit to come without being called. If not for the incident with Gruffydd earlier in the day, he would have taken delight in her presence.

  She sat upon the window ledge, one knee pulled up to her chest, the other leg dangling bare with her toes just touching the floor. She yawned and stretched one arm high above her, showing off the silhouette of her deep curves framed in the pale glow of moonlight.