The foot soldiers were his men. While my knights were a formidable force, it was right that he was taking most of the risk in this endeavor. He had the most to gain, and as he’d already lost everything, there was an urgency in him that I’d not seen before Clare had driven him from his lands. He’d not realized what it meant, before, to be a lord without a castle.
For our part, the guards at Caerphilly would not be enough to stop our force. The addition of Dafydd’s thirty men was, in fact, most welcome. I preferred overwhelming odds whenever possible. My only fear, in truth, was that we’d fired up the men for battle and would arrive at Caerphilly to find none on offer. It was at such times that men become difficult to control.
“We’re getting close, my lord,” Hywel said. The outlines of the castle, still less than head high, were just visible through the darkening sky a hundred yards ahead. “Clare has cleared the forest for some distance all around. We’ll soon be exposed.”
We rode to the top of a small hill that gave us a slight vantage point. “Mother of God!” I said at the sight of the construction.
“It appears to be as they promised,” Hywel said. “It will be the largest castle in the whole of Wales.”
“Not if I have any say in the matter,” I said. I pulled out my sword and held it above my head; then stood in the stirrups and signaled to the twenty-five men in my company to form up.
“Ride, men of Wales!” Dafydd called, a distant figure to my right. He urged his horse forward and led the charge. I let him.
My men surged forward, flowing down the slope and across the clearing to the burgeoning castle. Every third man held a torch. Although it made us targets for archers, a fire-lit cavalry charge inspired fear in the most hardened of men and I counted the risk worth it. To the men in the craft houses surrounding the site, it must have seemed like a dragon had descended among them.
I trotted Glewdra across the clearing in front of what Clare had meant to be the front gate and met Hywel near what looked to be the beginnings of a dam for the castle moat. One of several.
“What hubris Clare has to build such a colossus!” Hywel said as he greeted me. Unlike mine, his sword had blood on it.
“I need you to see to the men, Boots,” I said. “I didn’t want more than a skirmish, but this is less of a fight than I hoped it would be.”
Hywel nodded and headed towards the mass of men who’d collected towards the eastern edge of the building site. They milled about, looking for targets, but none presented themselves. The builders and masons weren’t our enemy and my men herded them into the middle of the building site and set them to work piling wood and brush on the stones and half-walls. Burning them would destroy them and leave Clare with only wreckage.
Goronwy circled the perimeter of the grounds on the far side of the field, looking for riders or men on foot who might be trying to escape to warn Clare. I turned Glewdra in the opposite direction, intending the same. As I came around the corner of a stone block—this one soon to form the base of one of the castle towers—a boy stepped from behind it, brandishing a long stick as his only weapon.
“Don’t be a fool,” I said. I leaned down and with my left hand, yanked the stick from his hand.
“I’ll fight you to the death,” the boy shouted, now raising his fists, as if that would hold off a sword. I reined in fully, studying him in the flickering light of the fire from the buildings which my men had set on fire.
“Now, why would you do that?”
He blinked. “You are thieves and barbarians from the north!”
“You should speak respectfully when you talk to a Prince of Wales,” a voice spoke from behind me. I turned to see my brother riding up beside me.
The boy crouched, and then dashed to one side. Dafydd urged his horse after him and in an easy motion, leaned down and scooped him up. I followed, wanting to make sure Dafydd wouldn’t harm him, though I saw no anger in him tonight. “A man knows when to fight and when to save his energy for another day,” Dafydd said.
The boy didn’t answer.
Then, Dafydd slowed his horse. “But you aren’t a man, are you?” Even in the gloaming darkness, his quick grin was evident.
“Please let me go,” the girl said, and her voice came out sounding so much like Meg’s that first night at Criccieth that my heart twisted at the memory.
“I won’t hurt you, cariad,” Dafydd said.
The girl gazed at Dafydd, wide-eyed, but no longer cowering. Between one heartbeat and the next, Dafydd had transformed himself into the being that attracted women like flies to a pot of honey.
“My lord,” Dafydd said, bowing his head slightly in my direction. I nodded and let him ride away with his prize. Enough women had told me, such that I assumed it to be true, that Dafydd was an accomplished lover. Despite his obvious failings, he would not mistreat the girl, no more than I had Meg.
I returned to the center of activity.
As I expected, Hywel had set up a perimeter of guards around the castle. “No one got away, as far as I know,” he said. “Though in the dark, it’s difficult to say.”
“Good,” I said.
Hywel looked ruefully at the devastation. “It won’t hold Clare up for long,” he said. “It’s just going to make him angry.”
“Clare is a twenty-five-year old boy. I could not let him build unchallenged. The precedent such an act sets is unthinkable.”
“He will go to the King,” Hywel said.
“No. I don’t think he will. He doesn’t want King Henry to interfere in Wales any more than I; less so, in fact, because the rights of the Marcher lords are so much more tenuous than mine. He will attempt to settle this himself.”
“Shall we press on to Cardiff?” Bevyn, my young man-at-arms, pulled up beside us. He was breathing hard. He’d been in the forefront of the battle—just where he liked to be.
I looked south, to the sea I couldn’t see from where I sat, and pictured Clare’s castle on its hill overlooking the Severn Estuary. “I have neither the men nor the inclination for a long siege. We came to teach Clare a lesson. I’ll give Gruffydd my support until July, and then I must return north. I have a woman and child to see to.”
“Best wishes on his birth, my lord,” Bevyn said.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll be counting on you to teach him as he grows.”
Bevyn’s eyes brightened. “It’ll be my pleasure, my lord. It surely will.”
* * * * *
“Damn the man!” I said as I burst through the door into the kitchen garden. “Why can’t he be predictable?”
“What is it?” Meg sat against one wall, soaking up the last heat of the mid-October day. We’d had rain every day for a week, and the bright sunlight that spilled through the branches above her head was very welcome. Her hand rested comfortingly on her belly, while Anna sang from the other side of a bush as she dug in the dirt with her little shovel. I came to a halt and drank her in. Since Caerphilly, I’d been more absent than not, seeing to my lands and marshalling every man I could to my side. But for the first time in my life, I resented my responsibilities.
“It’s Clare again. Apparently our meeting a month ago wasn’t enough. Now he wants to meet me south of here.”
“Where?”
“The old Roman road follows the Usk to the standing stone at Bwlch. Remote.”
“I thought you’d resolved your dispute for now?” she asked. “I thought you agreed that you would rule the north of Senghennydd and he would control the south and wouldn’t build further on his castle at Caerphilly.”
“That’s what I thought too.”
“So what changed?”
“I don’t know.” I sat, stretched out my legs to their full length, and crossed my ankles, leaning back against the garden wall.
“What do you think he wants?”
“He wants me out of Senghennydd,” I said. “It’s that simple. Barring that, he wants to start building his castle at Caerphilly again. What I wonder is to whom he has s
poken in the weeks since Tudur hammered out the latest agreement. Why does he need to see me face to face?”
“There hasn’t been any fighting, has there?”
“Not that I know of. I would have thought that Gruffydd would have sent me word if there had.”
“If he were free to do so,” Meg said.
I turned my head to look at her. “You have a point. And before you say it, I can see a trap opening between my feet too.”
“I’m afraid to say it at all,” I said. “You need to meet him in person? You just saw him at Castell Dinas; and your emissaries will meet again in the new year. Why this meeting? Why now?”
“Because he wants it resolved sooner and requests me, face to face, to hammer out our differences.”
“Is that usual?”
I shrugged. “I’ve met King Henry at the Ford of Montgomery. I would meet Edward, if need be. I can speak to Clare again.”
“Okay, I’ll say it,” Meg said. “Cilmeri.”
“It’s a long time from now,” I said. “I’ve no reason to believe Clare treacherous.”
Meg pursed her lips. “Send Clare a letter and say you’ve urgent business in the north and wish to proceed with the arbitration as planned.”
“He would know I wasn’t telling the truth.”
“Would he? Why? And why does it matter? You rule in Wales and can do as you please.”
“I wish it were that simple. I do have the right to defend my lands and have done so against the Marcher lords, but everything I do has consequences.” I studied her. “You recall that Bohun says Mortimer hates me?”
“I do,” Meg said. “I also recall that he tried to take Brecon from you—and kill you—not long ago.”
“And failed on both counts,” I said. “Do you think his ire has faded? Can you see how his failure this year might fester within him such that fourteen years from now his sons lure me to Cilmeri and kill me?”
“Gilbert de Clare is not Roger Mortimer.”
“But he could be,” I said, “given time. Besides, this wasn’t the first time I’ve defeated Mortimer. I’ve decimated his army twice. The first time was in 1262 at Cenfylls, and the second was only two years ago when he marched on Brecon and we stopped him at the ford, just to the northeast of the castle. The man has reason for a grudge.”
“And if you can avoid making Clare into another Mortimer, it is worth the effort,” Meg said.
“Yes,” I said. “That is it exactly.”
“How far is it? Can I come?”
I looked at her for a heartbeat and a half. “Meg.”
“All right, all right,” she said. “You don’t need to tell me why I shouldn’t.”
“It’s day’s ride. No more. I’ve a castle close by and we’ll make our base there before our meeting with Clare.”
“Why Bwlch?”
“Clare’s new mistress, since his marriage to Alice de Lusignan ended last year, is a Picard of Tretower Castle, located only a few miles away.”
“That’s just great,” Meg said. “And what happened to his first wife? I thought you couldn’t get a divorce in England.”
I smiled. “I think he’s going for an annulment, which might be hard to prove given that they have two daughters. You do have to pay a lot for it, and convince the Pope of your utter sincerity—though the fact that she has had a relationship with Prince Edward for many years may eventually aid Clare’s cause.”
Meg stared at me, aghast. She shook her head. “I don’t understand that.”
“That’s not surprising,” I said, “since nobody else does either. But as you may have observed, when a Prince wants something, he tends to get it.”
“I had noticed that.” She wrapped her arms around her belly as the baby kicked again.
“Don’t be like that,” I said. I put my arm across her shoulders and pulled her in to kiss her. “Am I really such an ogre?”
“I just don’t want you to go away again, not so close to the baby’s birth. I hate worrying about you.”
“I’ll take extra precautions,” I said. “There will be no Cilmeri at Bwlch. Don’t worry.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Meg
Llywelyn left with a host of men-at-arms and I tried not to worry, as he asked. I had other things to occupy my mind. I hadn’t told him before he left, but I was having some contractions, every now and then. It was nothing serious, but similar to what had happened with Anna when I’d had contractions for three solid weeks before her birth. They would go on and on, reaching a crescendo toward early evening, only to die down around bedtime. Then they’d start over the next day at nine in the morning. Not fun.
And today was Halloween (though they didn’t call it that—it was All Hallow’s Eve), the day before All Saints Day. The celebrations were already beginning in the village, where the weekly fair was in full swing. I held Anna’s hand as we walked across the drawbridge and down the road to the market square. It had rained in the night, but not so much that the road was muddy. Little puddles pocked the road, and I tugged Anna away from them, not wanting her to get wet on the way there. I’d let her get wet on the walk home and then change her clothes.
Normally, as Llywelyn’s woman, I rode into the village, even for the short distance from the castle to the market, but at nearly nine months pregnant, I wasn’t allowed near a horse, much less on top of one. Beside us, two of Llywelyn’s men-at-arms walked —Bevyn again, undoubtedly irritated at being left to mind me, though Llywelyn had tried to appease him by implying that this was a grave responsibility and he’d better not screw it up, and Rhodri, the young man who’d befriended Anna at the Gap, a lifetime ago now.
To understand what a medieval village fair was like, you first had to do away with anything you’d ever learned from movies, and particularly, focus not on what things looked like, but how they smelled. I’d gotten used to it in large part, but the sensitivities of early pregnancy had reasserted themselves at this late stage and I had to close my nose as I entered the village. The smell was a nauseating concoction of frying food, tanning leather, smoke, urine, decomposing organic matter of every variety, and manure.
The village was closely compacted due to the town wall that surrounded it. This protected it, but it also contained it and made the townsfolk ‘in-fill’ rather than spread their houses out as was more usual in Welsh communities. Very often, villages in Wales consisted only a few huts in which an extended family lived: uncles and aunts, grandparents, cousins, and various distant relations.
At the most, these were in groups of five or six; the family worked together communally in the fields or in the raising of sheep, goats, and cattle. Many Welsh were also nomadic, splitting their time between the pastures of the lowlands in the winter, and the mountain meadows in the summer. The market fair, then, was an exciting event for everybody, and because of the imminent holiday, the Brecon fair had brought in revelers from miles around.
Anna swung between Rhodri and me. We lifted her over a particularly noxious clod of refuse. He and I exchanged a glance of understanding, and he swung her onto his hip.
“Let’s see what trouble we can get into, shall we?” he said to her.
She smiled and touched a finger to his burgeoning mustache. Fashions were changing in Wales and more and more of the men sporting them. I hoped Llywelyn would refrain from growing one, but Bevyn looked at Rhodri with something bordering on envy. I wanted to tell him that he’d grow up—and acquire the ability to grow one—
soon enough.
Rhodri and Anna stopped at a display of finger whistles. The proprietor took one out and handed it to her—a classic tactic which meant that if I didn’t pay for it, I would either have an irate seller or a crying daughter. Sighing, I opened my purse. Bevyn leaned in, took out an appropriate amount, and began to bargain with the man. He and Rhodri had evidently decided, as had been the case in the past, that they still didn’t trust my Welsh enough to allow me to bargain all by myself. They were probably right. Anna’s We
lsh was coming along so well she might do better than I.
The stalls circled the village green and lined the road on both sides into the village. Players had set up their tent in the middle of the green—I wondered what we’d get this time. All Hallow’s Eve, so far, was showing itself not to be my favorite holiday in Wales. I didn’t like all the ghosts and witch talk, especially if any of that talk was going to be directed at me, and I wasn’t sure that some of it hadn’t been.
“Did you hear she knew about the ambush at Coedwig Gap before it happened?”
“Did you know that only she and the Prince were spared when the entire castle was poisoned?”
“Had you heard that she can read?”
“Don’t you worry, my lady,” Bevyn said, gesturing to the costumes and strange decorations. “No one will harm you today.”
“Why is that, Bevyn?” I asked. “Because they think I’m a witch and will cast a spell on them?”
“Not at all!” Bevyn said. “Where did you get that idea? Nobody’s saying that!”
“I’m sorry, Bevyn,” I said. “I must have misunderstood some of the gossip I overheard.”
“It’s true that you confuse people, but you’ve brought nothing but luck to the Prince. And now you will give him a son!”
Oh don’t say that! What if it’s a girl?
Then he put his hand on my arm, and the boyish exuberance was gone. “Your lord will be fine. Gilbert de Clare is a knight. His father was a force to be reckoned with in the Marche and he will not betray that memory.”
“I don’t know about that, Bevyn,” I said. “That’s probably why he’s so belligerent. He feels like he has large boots to fill and he’s worried he won’t be able to.”
“It’s every son’s fear,” Bevyn said.
“I don’t want to think about it.”
“It’s right before you,” Bevyn said, and he didn’t have to gesture towards my belly for me to know what he meant. “Every man is haunted by his father’s expectations—it’s a jumble of hatred, fear, loyalty, and love.”
Daughter of Time: A Time Travel Romance Page 22