“My lord Prince,” Bohun came to a halt in front of me, back straight, jaw firm, and tipped forward in a slight bow, an exact replica of Gruffydd’s posture a week earlier. Except in his case, the Bohuns had owned Brecon. Clare had taken it from him early in the Baron’s War, and then I took it from Clare. The Bohuns and I had been allies then, though our alliance hadn’t gone so far as to inspire me to give the castle back to the them.
“Lord Bohun,” I said.
I seated him on my right hand and had Goronwy on my left. Meg sat demurely with Anna at the head of the closest side table. I was sure her ears were as wide-open as they could be. Humphrey entered the room a moment later and made a bee-line for his grandfather, who didn’t stand to greet him.
“Find yourself a seat, boy,” Bohun said. “I’ll speak with you later.” His words pulled Humphrey up short, though he was becoming quite good at the stone-faced look.
“Yes, sir.” He turned to seat himself across from Meg. I didn’t say anything. Among the English, a man could be twenty-one before he came into his inheritance. It was ridiculous to leave it so late, with half a man’s life gone already. Perhaps that was this younger Humphrey’s problem: his grandfather still treated him as a child when he had the mind to be a man. He resented that treatment and his anger was manifested in foolish behavior.
“You’ll release him to me, then,” Bohun said between bites of chicken. He tossed an empty bone into the dish set in front of us and speared an onion with his belt knife.
“Yes,” I said. “I told you I would.”
“And no hard feelings, eh?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “I lost good men because three noble boys—and I don’t care that Owain and Dafydd are nearly thirty—had men-at-arms to command and thought to end my life for a lark.”
“Huh.” Bohun grunted. “If a Bohun seeks your death from now on, it will be on a field of battle, not an ambush.”
“Before we captured your grandson, I would have thought that the case anyway,” I said.
Bohun rumbled deep in his chest and his eyes narrowed at Humphrey who didn’t notice as he was conversing with Meg. “I hear you have a new woman.”
I paused, a wine goblet half-way to my lips. “Yes. I would hardly have thought such news would invite comment.”
“Everything you do invites comment, especially when it’s out of the ordinary. I hear she warned you of the ambush too, though I confess, rumors that she is a witch are surely grossly exaggerated, if that is the woman there with the child on her lap.”
“That is she. What of Lacey?” Meg and Anna were none of Bohun’s business.
“No word,” Bohun said. “I sent out riders, but he has disappeared.”
“And Edward?”
“Ah.” Bohun looked squarely at me for the first time. “We come to the meat of it. You know he intends a Crusade?”
“Yes.”
“He cannot go until he accumulates funds he does not yet have,” Bohun said.
“Always the plight of princes.”
“And earls.” Bohun snorted. “Be that as it may, he seeks the security of his father’s kingdom while he is away; I believe he sees you as a threat to that.”
“His father still lives,” I said.
“A figurehead,” Bohun said. “You know that. We all face the ambitions of the younger generation, and I am one generation older than you. Any man who has seen his son die for an ideal has faced his own mortality. My grandson must grow stronger before I die. It is now, with Edward on the verge of leaving for the Holy Land, that I must take those steps that will secure my lands for him.”
“Surely Edward wouldn’t deny your grandson his inheritance?” I said. “He forgave you for fighting on the losing side.”
“It was my son at Evesham, not me,” Bohun said. “I paid the fines. On top of which, I am Edward’s godfather and he knows me well. He’d prefer that every one of the barons of the Marche were at each other’s throats, as that will mean they won’t be at his or his father’s while he’s away. For him to refuse me my lands would only bring instability to the region in his absence. He knows that. Edward is a calculating bastard if there ever was one.”
“You speak frankly,” I said. “I’m surprised.”
“You expected me to pay you for my grandson in gold?”
“No,” I said. “You are correct in thinking it was information I wanted. Do you have more to tell me?”
“I can speak to you of Clare,” Bohun said, “and Mortimer.”
Christ! “The both of them chafe at me like pebbles in my shoe,” I said. “News of Clare’s building plans is what brought me south in the first place, but it is Roger Mortimer who’s been much in my thoughts of late.”
“You don’t have to worry about Clare as yet.” Bohun waved his hand dismissively. “He’s not done more than dropped a few stones on the ground so far. No, his plans are to bring you south and bring you down.”
“How?”
“That I don’t know. Gilbert de Clare was my ward four years ago when he inherited his lands, and fought alongside my son until he betrayed us for Edward. Does Edward trust him? I don’t think he trusts anyone. Does Mortimer? I only know that you have done something to garner Mortimer’s ire and rumor has it that he hates you with an inspired passion.”
I put down my cup to study Bohun who chewed avidly on a piece of parsley. “I supported Montfort against the King,” I said. “Mortimer was the king’s staunchest ally through loss and triumph. He carries a grudge against me three years on, but not against you?”
“You’re the easier target,” Bohun said. “And you have no heir to your lands.”
“Do you suppose they think to use Clare as their weapon?”
“That is exactly what I think,” Bohun said. “And Clare is young enough still to seek to please them as proof of his allegiance.”
“And despite your allegiance to the English crown, you can’t abide Clare.”
“The whoreson burned Montfort’s boats and the bridge across the Severn at Gloucester! I’m surrounded by men whose honor is a thin sheen through which they manipulate the world, easily swept aside at the first hint that it might serve them better to be without it!”
“I have always been constant,” I said. “I’ve only bowed to necessity.”
“Well, there is that. I can only say the same.”
We both lifted our glasses, thinking of all the times we’d had to bend our knees, our necks, and the honor we had left, despite Meg’s staunch admiration, to an English king or to necessity in order to hold onto our lands, lands we only held at the king’s pleasure. I, at least, had Wales and the Welsh people as a patrimony. Bohun’s right to his lands was more ephemeral. His family had carved their estates out of lands that had once belonged to others and could again. He’d lost his son at Evesham. Even if Humphrey didn’t realize it today, he was Bohun’s most precious possession.
* * * * *
“We must see now, to Clare,” I said to Meg. We stood on the battlements above the gate and watched the Bohuns exit through the northern castle gate and follow the road east to England. They rode side by side at the head of Bohun’s men. The elder Bohun hadn’t castigated his grandson in public, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be in Humphrey’s shoes when his grandfather admonished him in private. That would be a tongue lashing to remember.
The scouts I’d sent south had returned an hour earlier. “It is as you suspected, my lord,” Bevyn had reported. He was the youngest of the group but the other men respected his intelligence and ability and allowed him to speak for them all. “A few stakes in the ground are all that Clare has placed. However, of more significance are the preparation for defensive dams and moats.”
“We spoke with people in a village nearby,” Rhodri continued. “They claim it will be the largest castle every built—even in the whole of England!”
“So the Red Earl has plans, does he?” I said. “We’ll see about that.”
“King Henr
y will support you, surely,” Goronwy had said. “It’s your land.”
Tudur snorted. “Not likely. The King won’t be pleased to know that Clare is playing fast and loose with our treaty, within only a few months of its confirmation, but within the Marche, the King has tied his own hands long since.”
“Marcher lords are allowed to wage war on one another without royal interference,” Goronwy said. “But Prince Llywelyn is not included in that understanding.”
“So we say,” said Tudur. “Clare doesn’t seem to be paying attention.”
“Then I will make him,” I said.
Even as I dictated the letter to King Henry objecting to Clare’s actions, the Earl of Hereford’s parting words stayed with me, hovering in the back of my mind like the warning they were: “You have a warrior at your threshold in Mortimer. Don’t allow the Red Earl to distract you such that you lose this castle. It is my castle, remember, and I expect it back in good condition, when you’re done with it.”
And that night, I lay awake thinking of battle, unable to sleep, even as I wrapped my arms around Meg to hold off the coming challenge:
May twenty-second, in the year of our Lord, twelve hundred and sixty-six. I pace across the great hall of my castle at Brecon. Although it belonged originally to the Bohuns, I took it from Clare in 1265. Mortimer thought it should have been his. He cannot forgive me.
The men are waiting; they’ve been waiting for days as we’ve watched the progress of Mortimer and his men across the plains, up and down the ridges and valleys that lead to Brecon. They crossed into Wales at the great Dyke, and I wish every day of my life that it still stood as it once did, a barrier between my people and those who seek to conquer us.
I mount Glewdra and she tosses her head in expectation. Battles don’t scare her. She’s fought in many, carrying me through all of them with a surety that makes her one of my staunchest friends. I pat her side.
“Another chance, cariad.”
She whinnies and trots forward, head up and proud, for she knows that it is her place to ride at the head of any host of men. I’m joined by Goronwy and Hywel. We cross the drawbridge and take the main road out of Brecon. Once past the village, however, we head across the fields, making for the heights above Felinfach, the last major ford before Mortimer can reach us.
“You are prepared,” I say to Goronwy, not as a question, but a statement of fact.
“Yes, my lord,” he says. “They will crowd the ford. It is the best place to hit them, and the farthest they will reach into Wales, now and perhaps forever.”
“You are that confident?”
“Do you remember Cymarau?”
“I could never forget such a victory,” I say.
“It will be like that,” Goronwy says.
I nod, sure in his assurance, and turn my attention to the road ahead and the task that lies before us. We will turn Mortimer back, and he will not raise another army for many a year.
The sun rises over our heads as we climb the ridge, a hundred feet above the ford, but sloping down to it over less than a quarter mile. Goronwy has spent some time thinking about his plan of attack and has prepared the ground accordingly. Trees blocking our view of the river have been cut down and hauled away, and now the archers crouch behind a stone wall he built over the course of three days, a perfect one hundred yards from the ford. At Goronwy’s signal, they will stand and fire.
As horseman, we wait just inside the stand of trees at the top of the ridge. Mortimer doesn’t know we’re here, hasn’t realized that our scouts have been following his progress throughout the last three days. Mortimer’s stronghold at Wigmore Castle in Herfordshire is not far away, but this is a foreign land and he doesn’t know the terrain.
I suspect, though I do not know, that Mortimer’s attempt at Brecon is actually an attack on Clare, whom he despises, even as he welcomes him back into the royal fold. King Henry gave Brecon to Clare, if he could take it from me, that is. As he cannot, Mortimer sees it as fair game.
A mistake.
“They’re coming, my lord! They’ve reached the ford of the Dulas!”
Goronwy’s hand rises and then falls, loosing the arrows the archers have been holding. The arrows fly, arcing through the morning light, the sun glinting off their metal heads. They hit, and the carnage begins at the ford. Another flight of arrows flies, and then another. Underneath the cover of the last, Goronwy releases the cavalry. They race forward, screaming to the heavens, a lance headed straight for the heart of Mortimer’s men.
For once, Goronwy has convinced me to stand with the rear guard, to watch as a sentinel on the hill. Under normal circumstances, it is my role to lead my men, but today, there is something he wants me to see.
And there it is. On the left flank of Mortimer’s army is the man himself. He has led a host of men and horses away from the ford and is attempting to cross at a more southerly point. Yet, the horses flounder in the current. I could have told them that the Dulas runs deep there. Any Welshman could have. But he is of the Marche, and has received some bad advice.
With a shout, I urge the men with me into a gallop. We race down the slope to the point where Mortimer will come across, if he makes it. He sees us coming and even from this distance I see him shake his head. Almost at the same moment, another flight of arrows passes over our heads and slams into the hapless riders on the opposite bank. The archers have moved east so as to not hit us, and have found better ground from which to kill.
Mortimer glances left then right. He shouts at me words I can’t hear properly over the rush of the water and the screams of dying men and horses. He brandishes his sword, but then turns his horse’s head and retreats up the bank. His men follow.
Soon the defeat becomes a rout. Mortimer’s army is decimated; defeated so entirely that only a handful of knights and men-at-arms are able to flee to the woods on the other side of the Dulas.
The archers fire at their backs and more men go down. The horsemen outpace the foot soldiers, who are racing away, but still not fast enough because Goronwy gives the order for our cavalry to cross the river after them. They splash through the river shoulder to shoulder and give chase, running Mortimer’s men down from behind, one by one. In the final count, Mortimer loses a hundred and fifty foot and twenty horse at the ford of Felinfach. We lose less than a tenth of that.
Death is everywhere, but yet again, has not come for me.
Chapter Seventeen
Meg
I slipped out of bed and pulled the extra blanket that lay at its foot around my shoulders, careful not to wake Llywelyn. For the third night in a row I was having trouble sleeping. Now, here it was at nearly dawn and I’d slept no more than a few hours. I knew why, knew not sleeping wasn’t going to help me deal with what I was facing. But telling myself over and over to relax was helping no more this night than it had the one before.
I hopped onto the window seat the Bohuns had so generously built under the only window in the castle of any size at all, and pulled the curtain half-way across to hide the light from the open shutter.
Brecon was a fortress, built on a rise at the confluence of the Usk and Honddu Rivers. The Honddu River rushed by in the moonlight thirty feet below my feet. The view was so spectacular I imagined I could see London from where I sat, though mountains rose between us and the plains of England. The water in the river was high from yesterday’s heavy rain, muddy and full of debris washing in from the banks and tributaries. The snow had long since melted away and the spring rains had come.
I glanced at the curtain that separated our room from the one adjacent, but no noise came from behind it. Although reluctant, I’d bowed to the inevitable pressure and moved Anna out of our room to one where she now slept with her nanny.
After more than two months in Wales, I didn’t know if she even remembered what home had been like. I imagined that if she were to see it again, it would come back to her, but she’d adapted well to the day-to-day life of the castle. I didn’t know how I felt
about that. She would grow up as a thirteenth century woman, and despite what Llywelyn had said about not seeing much difference between how people were on the inside, it worried me. At least I would ensure she could read, write, and do math. But she wasn’t ever going to understand about dinosaurs.
The rushing water tempted me to dangle my feet as if sitting on a dock, but I resisted. Even I could see that it wasn’t seemly behavior for the companion to the Prince of Wales, even when no one else was looking.
And then someone was looking.
Llywelyn slipped his arm around my waist, lifting me slightly so he could slide in behind me, his back to the wooden wall that formed the box of the window seat, and one leg braced against the stone of the window frame. I rested against his chest,.
“Not sleeping again?” He shoved the curtain wide to let more light from the bright moon into the room and then pulled me closer.
I bent my knees and pulled my nightgown over them so it formed a tent over my legs and covered my feet. “What do you mean, again?”
“Tonight, last night, the one before. Did you think I wouldn’t notice you were gone when I rolled over?”
“You seemed to be sleeping deeply.”
“My hope was that you would share your concerns with me, and then we could both sleep, but clearly that hasn’t happened.”
Daughter of Time: A Time Travel Romance Page 18