Uneasy Lies the Crown

by N. Gemini Sasson

  “He came to me,” Owain began, his tongue thick with... guilt, perhaps? “Gruffydd told me, told me he wanted to make you his wife. Asked if it would be fitting, given your —”

  “Lack of lineage?” She tilted her head at him.

  Owain lowered his eyes. “Not those exact words, but yes, that is what he inferred.”

  “And you told him —?”

  “Nothing. I told him I couldn’t answer him. Told him...”—he looked up at her—“told him he must speak with you first.”

  A long minute passed before she said, “But you don’t want him to have me, do you? You want me for yourself?”

  God help me, I do. More than I need to breathe. He nodded. And yet I know I should let you go.

  “What if I consented to be his wife? Gruffydd is a good man. Very much like you.”

  “Then I would not stand in your way... though my heart would shatter.”

  She pushed herself up from the window ledge and stood. “I shall tell him ‘no’, then.”

  “He’ll want to know why.”

  “Perhaps. I’ll simply tell him I love another. Don’t worry—I won’t tell him it’s you. He’ll figure that out on his own, eventually, if he hasn’t already.”

  She was more right than he cared to admit. And when it happened, Gruffydd would be angry—for stealing Nesta from him, for betraying his mother. But he could not give Nesta up. Not now. Not ever. So much of what lay ahead was unclear to him. Having Nesta beside him at night eased his worries. Her words imbued him with confidence and courage. Yet why this knot of anxiety twisting at his insides?

  It would have numbed him to his troubles to simply pull her close and lose himself in her. But instead he just stood there in the doorway, his feet firmly rooted, his eyes lacking focus, his shoulders stooped. The weight he bore was tenfold that of his armor. He was beginning to wonder if the plans he had suggested to Hotspur were beyond their means.

  She pressed a goblet of wine into his fingers. When he was done with it, she took his hand and led him to stand in front of a chair. Kneeling at his feet, she began to unfasten the straps that secured his leg armor.

  “My squire will be along shortly to attend to me,” he said wearily.

  “There is no need for your squire when I can put you in a comfortable state.” Her fingers flew from one strap to the next. She laid each piece aside with practiced precision. “I have been in the company of a knight or two before you, my lord.”

  “I would never have flattered myself by assuming I was your first, but I am scarcely in the mood for pleasures tonight, my love.”

  “I can plainly see that. You’ll need your rest. You have much to consider on the morrow.”

  Suddenly, he clamped a hand on her fingers. “Did they find him?”

  She answered with a glance and a nod.

  “And did he agree to come?”

  “He’s in the kitchen.”

  Owain squeezed her hand tighter. “How will I know if what he says is true?”

  There was a piercing sincerity in her dark eyes. “Hopkyn ap Thomas is no charlatan, Owain. He is a Master of Brut. For many, many years he has studied the divinations of Myrddin Emrys.”

  “Merlin?King Arthur’s Merlin? The wizard?”

  “Or prophet, some say. Yes, Merlin, Merlinus Ambrosius, Myrddin Emrys—they’re all the same man.”

  “I still don’t understand why I should listen to this Master Hopkyn.”

  “Do you believe Arthur existed?”

  He scoffed. “Of course. What Welshman does not?”

  “Many believe he will come again and that the time of his return was foretold by Myrddin Emrys. As for his prophecies, there is no man alive who knows them better than Master Hopkyn. If you seek to know what is in the stars, he will tell you their meaning.”

  “But I have heard soothsayers before, and they speak of bears and wolves, of boars and foxes, swans and ravens, not men. Things that make no sense.”

  She pressed a pair of fingers to his lips. “Owain, to the rest of us it seems they all speak in riddles. You were born with a vision that only of late you have allowed yourself to follow. Do not let doubt cloud that. Go, listen to Master Hopkyn. Heed him.”

  “Mind you, I’m curious, nothing more.” Freeing himself from the last of his body armor, he laid it thoughtfully aside, and then wriggled out of his chain mail with her help. Finally, he removed his shirt and leggings. There was no modesty between them anymore.

  “Nesta, I lived a quiet life until a few years ago. When Grey stole my lands I could have lain at his feet like a beaten dog, but when he began his selfish plotting to turn me into a rebel, I vowed to become a more troublesome one than he could ever have counted on. I was put in that position. God knows I did not seek it. My only ‘visions’ are of freedom for my countrymen and to have my own peaceful life back.” He was painfully aware, as the last words left his tongue, that the life he had been fighting to return to was the one he had before her, one without her.

  “My love,”—she wrapped her arms about his neck, her fingers teasing at the tangles in his hair—“you will not fail. There is too much greatness in you. Your brow was made for a crown. Take what is meant to be yours. Let no one and nothing stand in your way.”

  He buried his cheek against the wild crown of her curls and held her tight. “I need you, Nesta. I need your faith. And I will need it in days to come more than ever.”

  The face of Hopkyn ap Thomas of Gower was obscured behind a veil of steam. A pair of peppered, feathery eyebrows flicked upward as Owain entered the kitchen.

  “A bit warm for stew, is it not?” Owain said. The cooks, upon seeing him duck his head to enter through the doorway, scurried to clear the table of bowls and plates. He waved them away.

  In slow motion, Hopkyn lowered his bowl. He stared at Owain as if struck by awe. Finally, he shoved his stool back, toppling it, and dropped to his knees. The bald top of his head shone in the firelight.

  “Please, get up.” Owain had never become accustomed to these reverent displays. They gave him a sense of feeling unattached. Back at Sycharth, the hasty bows and respectful greetings were but formalities that were quickly dispensed with. But frequently now he found people kneeling at his feet, drinking in his image as if he were Jesus Christ walking upon water and he found it all ridiculous. “I’m pleased to see that you agreed to come. I wasn’t sure if you would.”

  Hopkyn’s chin rose slowly. “But I have been waiting so long.”

  Nesta was right. He was already speaking in riddles. Too anxious to sit still, Owain paced before the cooking hearth. A pot of beans boiled slowly on a hook above the flames. “Tell me, if you will, how the future will fall out for Wales.”

  “For Wales?Or for you?”

  His hands clasped tightly behind his back, Owain turned to him. “Tell me what you will. Tell me what course I should follow tomorrow and in the days to come.”

  Straightening his spine, Hopkyn stood. “The prophecies are not always so clear.”

  “Then what good are they, if not to guide us?”

  “You misunderstand.” Hopkyn fumbled for the stool, righted it, and sat again. He wove his fingers together. “Many were foretold centuries ago by those who knew not the names or places of which they spoke. And time is a relative matter. The time for the prophecies to unfold comes not when we beckon it, but when it is right.”

  With a sweep of his arm, Owain sent every bowl, knife and spoon clattering to the floor. One of the cooks peeked worriedly through a crack in the door, and then disappeared quickly. Owain slammed his fists on the table. “I have no time for guessing games, Master Hopkyn. There is too much at stake. Hotspur is headed for Chester, where we will join together to march on London. I must know—and save your riddles—how it will fall out, if this is the right course to follow. Tell me... or be gone from here.”

  Hopkyn closed his eyes and breathed deeply, drawing from within. “You will be captured under a black banner between Gower and Carmar
then,”—he raised his eyes to meet Owain’s—“if you go.”

  “That leaves only one route, to the west. A narrow strip between Carmarthen and the sea via Laugharne.” It would delay them greatly. He could only pray that any diversion Hotspur had created for Henry would buy enough time for that not to matter. “Are you certain? Is there no other way?”

  “None,” Hopkyn replied.

  “And what of the future? Some have said that Arthur would return one day to free his people. Do the prophecies foretell this? And is it possible that I... that I am him?”

  Hopkyn drew a finger through a puddle of spilled stew and shrugged. “Do you believe you are?”

  “No.”

  “If that’s true, if you don’t believe you are him, why ask me? Would it matter what I said?” He fell silent then, pulling his folded hands in close to him and letting his chin sink as if he had nothing more to say... or nothing more he cared to say.

  Owain dug beneath his shirt for the pouch he carried, opened it and pushed a few coins across the table. “For your troubles.”

  Hopkyn slid the glittering coins back at Owain. “I did not come for that. I came to fight the English.”

  “Very well.” Owain nodded. The soothsayer was an old man, but he would keep him safe behind the lines with other duties. “I may have need of you... from time to time.”

  Hopkyn was shown to a pallet in a back room by a servant. Owain returned to his own room, where Nesta lay waiting. He did not need her in the sense that a man needs to prove that his appetite for women had not waned with the years, but he needed her in subtler ways. Although Owain would not readily confess to it to her, he believed that this Hopkyn had a gift beyond the scope of ordinary man. He would do as he said.

  Owain was up well before dawn, the skin beneath his eyes drooping heavily. He sent a detachment into the hills beyond Carmarthen to see if the routes north toward Gower were safe. Two days later he received the news: his party had been slaughtered by a column under the English Lord Carew. Had he gone that way himself, he would not have lived. Owain’s deference to Hopkyn’s premonitions became even firmer.

  Chester, England — Summer, 1403

  Harry Hotspur galloped through Chester’s gates in all his flamboyance. His horse was caparisoned in a festival of color. The feathery crest of his helmet flowed behind him as he shouted, “Long live King Richard!”

  Townspeople poured out of their shops and homes. They raised their fists in the air and echoed him: “Long live King Richard!”

  Chester had been the very breeding ground for Richard’s famed Cheshire archers, who sported their white hart badges and brandished their bows like lightning rods before all who defied them. Those archers had not come from noble houses, but from the fields and towns.

  In his innately contagious and charismatic manner, Hotspur rallied the people to him. The ten thousand seasoned fighters he had brought from Northumberland were augmented by the thousands there who pledged themselves in Richard’s name, waving rusty billhooks and broadaxes above their heads. Hotspur truly doubted that Richard still lived; he knew Henry too well to think for a moment that the man would have allowed his cousin to survive and complicate his reign, but it was in Hotspur’s interest at the moment not to crush the hopes of those who now clamored before him.

  A message from Owain Glyndwr stated that he had been delayed in the south and if Hotspur could secure Chester, then he and Mortimer would join him shortly for the march on London. His father had not yet sent word and while that was a matter of some concern to Hotspur, it was also to be expected, given the complications of their plan. In his possession, Hotspur had letters from various nobles throughout the land swearing to bring Henry to his knees and make him relinquish what he had so wrongly and vilely stolen.

  In Shrewsbury, Prince Harry was biding his time. It was a temptation too fantastic to resist. If Hotspur waited for the others, it would be too late. He had enough numbers to take the city now.

  King Henry’s days were numbered. England would be restored to its proper order in due course. Shrewsbury—and if fortune smiled on him, Prince Harry—would be Hotspur’s, as well.

  35

  Shrewsbury, England — July, 1403

  Harry Hotspur had no words for what he heard. His heart clogged his throat. They had halted just five miles northwest of Shrewsbury when a scout arrived with the fires of hell burning at his heels and the terrible news on his tongue: the leopard banner of King Henry IV of England was fluttering above the town walls of Shrewsbury, its statement bold and clear.

  Hotspur had lost the race. Worse than that, his betrayal had been discovered. There was no turning back now.

  His uncle, the Earl of Worcester, grabbed Hotspur’s shoulder and inclined his head toward the hand-wringing, slight-framed man behind him in cleric’s robes. “The abbot brings terms from King Henry.”

  Clutching his helmet tightly under his arm, Hotspur stared at the horizon. The sharp scent of spearmint and thyme filled the air in William Bretton’s garden, where they had been directed to receive Henry’s envoy. “Send him back.”

  “But you must at least hear what the king has to say.”

  “No,” Hotspur said, “I will hear nothing from that liar. He swore to my father and me at Doncaster, as he kissed the Holy Gospel, that he had come to claim only what had been taken from him. And what did he do? Stole the crown from his own cousin—who, most conveniently, died soon afterward. What measure of a man is that, to knowingly perjure himself in the name of Almighty God? He means nothing of what he says.”

  Worcester reeled his nephew closer, pinching Hotspur’s neck with the force of his grip. “We’ve heard nothing from your father. I fear he is not coming.”

  Hotspur jerked away. “He gave his word! He will come. He said he would. I’ll not renounce him, nor should you.”

  “He swore allegiance to Henry, yet he is swayed by you. The man is riven in two. The fact is that we are without him. The others who swore they would come... I see none of them. And where—where is Glyndwr?”

  “Where is your spine, Thomas?” Hotspur snarled.

  “Attached to my head.” Worcester glanced over his shoulder at the abbot, who was straining to hear their words. A green sea of herbs stood between them. “Listen to me, Harry. I am with you in this until the brutal end—whatever that may be. I know what will happen to us if we fail. But I believe in what has brought us here, just as you do. The cowards who did not come—they will get their due. And you are right—Henry is a liar and a thief of the lowest sort.”

  “Then go to him... Go back with the abbot and tell him so.” Hotspur flexed his gauntleted hand before him. “Tell him that we will prove by our own hands that he, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, named himself king without right to that title. By his own mouth he came to this land for naught but his inheritance. Tell him he may have it, but let the throne pass to the heir of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. The Earl of March is the true king. Go. Tell him God is on our side.”

  “Pray I return,”—Worcester pulled a kerchief from beneath his armor and mopped away the perspiration gathering on his forehead—“given that we already know his answer. At this point, I don’t think he would listen to God, either.”

  “I suppose this means a battle, then.”

  Worcester grinned wryly. “Did you come here not expecting one?”

  Motioning to the abbot to follow him, he turned and left through the garden gate. Hotspur settled on a bench, mindful of splinters, for its planks were weathered from sun and rain. Nearby, a pair of doves nestled wing to wing on the top rail of the wicket fence surrounding the garden, cooing softly to one another.

  Today, he would write to Elizabeth, tell her he would return home as soon as he could, but that she should go ahead with the plans to arrange the marriage of their daughter to the Clifford boy. He would also tell her that—and God forbid it should come to pass—if he were taken prisoner or died in battle, the Earl of Douglas would see to it their son was given safe
haven in Scotland.

  A man should always hope for victory, but it was not a bad thing to prepare for defeat. There were others to consider besides just himself.

  Douglas and Hotspur were slouched over the kitchen table in Bretton’s house, nursing their tankards, when Worcester returned. The candles were burnt down to stubs and the cooking hearth was stone cold.

  Hotspur took a long pull of ale and dragged a sleeve across his mouth before letting out a low belch. “Henry was overjoyed to see you, I assume. Showered you with gifts and promises, did he? Pray tell, what did he have to say?”

  “Very little.” Worcester shook his head when his nephew offered him a drink. “As to your statements regarding whose right it is to sit upon the throne, he says England has already spoken on his behalf.”

  “What of it, Archibald?” Hotspur cuffed Douglas on the arm. “Are you up for a fight?”

  Douglas gave his friend a drunken smile and raised his tankard with a wink of his one good eye. “English fighting English? I would no’ miss it for all the whores in Babylon.”

  On the morning of the 21st of July, 1403, Hotspur was awakened with the news that the king’s forces were already advancing from Shrewsbury. He sped to the nearby village to join his troops as they prepared to march, Douglas and Worcester riding abreast of him. The dew was heavy on the fields and birds sang gleefully without regard to the serious nature of the men who had risen that day at their heralding.

  “You’re unusually silent on this fine morning, Hotspur,” Douglas said.

  “I have but one thought on my mind today,” Hotspur said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “To beat my way through Henry’s army, cut out his false tongue and ram my sword through his ungrateful heart.”

  Douglas snorted. “You’ll have a rough time of it with only your dagger. Where is your long sword? Does your squire have it?”