“That is good to hear.” Anna hoped she kept the sarcasm out of her voice.
Ted gestured to the driver. “This is Andre.”
Anna bobbed her head. “It’s nice to meet you.” But then she turned again to Mark and spoke in an undertone, “You okay with this?”
“For now.” He leaned forward and directed his next words at Ted. “I’m realizing that you have told Mr. Treadman far more about Anna—and me—than you previously let on.”
Ted’s expression turned grave. “Like I said back at Callum’s apartment, we—and by that I mean everyone from David and Anna to MI-5 to Elisa and me—have been doing the same thing over and over again. Don’t you think it’s time for a change?”
Then Ted’s phone rang, and he answered. “Yes, she’s here.” Pause. “Yes, we were followed.” He dropped the phone slightly and spoke to the driver. “Are we being followed now?”
“I would have let you know if we were.” He pressed his finger to his ear and spoke to someone who wasn’t there, perhaps George in the follow car, “How are we doing?” He nodded to a response only he could hear, and then he said, louder, to everyone in the car, “We took care of the cameras on the street, but with so many buildings and tourists, dozens of people could have seen you get into this vehicle. That said, we hope to be well away from London before those chasing you realize you’ve left the city.”
Mark studied the man for a count of three before saying, “You’re not just a chauffeur, are you?”
Andre laughed. “Hardly.”
Ted looked embarrassed. “Andre is head of Mr. Treadman’s security. He insisted on driving you today. We don’t want any mistakes.”
Andre nodded. “I’ve just heard from some of my men. They’ve collected Elisa and Elen.”
“Good.” Ted relaxed a little more.
Mark looked at his phone to read a message that had just come in. “The horse has made the news.”
Anna gaped at a video—on Mark’s phone!—of the dead horse being wheeled out of Westminster and levered into a large animal van. The newscaster said, “No word yet on how the horse found itself inside Westminster Hall.” It showed an image of the police sergeant Anna had met talking to a man in a suit within the gates of Westminster. “Authorities report it was a prank gone wrong, as the horse went wild once confined to the hall and had to be put down.”
“So do we know who was following us?” Anna said, though her eyes were still on the video.
“Not yet.” Andre’s eyes flashed once again to the rearview mirror, and he and Mark exchanged a long look that Anna couldn’t interpret.
“It had to be Westminster Palace, didn’t it?” she said.
Mark leaned his head back against the rest. “Apparently so.”
By contrast, Ted was the opposite of despondent. “You are going to be safe and protected, though Mark—” his expression sobered, “—you may never go back to MI-5.”
Mark made a rueful face. “I think we can assume that.” Then he patted her thigh. “Regardless, Anna, you have nothing to fear. You aren’t in danger. You’re the goose that lays the golden egg.”
While Anna didn’t like the sound of that, it was true that the one laying the golden egg is the one with the power. Maybe right now wasn’t the time to exert it, not without a plan to do so, but it was food for thought and maybe something to plan for in the future. This time around she was set back on her heels, but maybe next time, between her, Mom, and David, they didn’t need to be.
Chapter Sixteen
19 March 1294
Ieuan
“Why Scots?” Cadwallon said. “Why is Balliol stirring?”
“I hate to speculate.” Ieuan stood in the clearing in front of the inn, studying the landscape. His eyes had taken a turn for the worse in his late twenties, and he didn’t see distance as well as he once had, but he had spectacles in his pack if he needed them. For now, he pulled out a pair of binoculars, another gift from Dafydd. At this point, it was trite to say Dafydd and his family had transformed the world and the people around them, but that didn’t make it any less true.
“Do you think they’re riding all the way to Scotland?”
“Not tonight, they’re not,” Ieuan said. “It’s too far. Besides, according to the innkeeper, only a few of the men were Scots. The rest are English, they speak English, and that means they must come from an English lord.”
Cadwallon bit his lip, and his eyes went to the east too. “But who?”
“If we keep riding in the same direction they went, we will eventually find out.” Ieuan turned and whistled through his teeth, calling the men together, and they gathered around him.
England and Wales had been at peace for ten years. There had been battles, mostly one-offs, and nothing large scale. So while Dafydd had taken the most experienced of his men-at-arms to Ireland, Ieuan still had plenty of capable men at his disposal. Nothing else was acceptable in Dafydd’s train.
And yet, as Ieuan looked into their faces, he saw them as so young, and he was reminded again how the world had changed since he’d hunted in the woods outside his uncle’s house, pretending Humphrey de Bohun was William de Braose and he was Cadwallon the Brave. In those days, war with England had been a way of life, and he’d never questioned that it always would be.
Today, the men (and woman) who looked at him were Welsh and English both, and many of them had been children when King Edward had died and the world had changed. They didn’t know another way to be, and Ieuan was more determined than ever that they never would. They were not going back to the bad old days when parents died and children grew up too fast.
Without war, however, his men weren’t exactly seasoned, though they would be gaining experience by the hour today. “We will continue on the trail of the company. They came through here and should be easier to track from now on.” He looked darkly all around. “I’m feeling more confident that Princess Anna wasn’t with them, but we still don’t know for certain. The innkeeper did confirm Scotsmen were included in this company, but it was not led by a Scot. I don’t know where they are going any more than you do, but as we have been doing since we left Dinas Bran, we will stop at every croft and village and trace this company’s movements across England. Any questions?”
That was something Ieuan would never have asked his men once upon a time, but Dafydd’s open-mindedness had influenced him, and Ieuan had chosen these men in part because they weren’t simple soldiers. They might be young, but they were thinkers, and that’s what he needed today. It was what Dafydd had needed when he’d elevated Ieuan himself to captain ten years ago.
One young man of twenty raised his hand. “I don’t know this land well, but Venny does.” He pointed to the man standing next to him. And really, the pair couldn’t have been more different. Mathew was English, son of a London wheelwright, but smart as a whip and built like a boar. Dafydd routinely went into the London academies and chose the best and brightest for his service, and Mathew was one of the finest examples of that. He rode beside the sons of noblemen, whose predecessors would have insisted Mathew wasn’t good enough to do anything more than polish their boots—or build the wheels of their carriages. Dafydd didn’t tolerate such attitudes, however, and any nobleman who expressed them—or even thought them in Dafydd’s presence—was soon deprived of Dafydd’s favor.
Venny, by contrast, was really named William Venables. His ancestors were Norman, and he was heir to a barony that had risen just high enough to be exactly the kind of nobleman who, in the past, would have stepped on Mathew in order to emphasize his own greatness. But instead, he had accepted his place in Dafydd’s new order.
Being slender and short of stature, Venny didn’t look very much like a soldier. What an outsider wouldn’t know was that he didn’t have a thimbleful of fat on him, and his slender body was a powerhouse of energy. Ieuan had personally witnessed him jump four feet straight up and land on a wall with no running start. He could out-wrestle men twice his size, and when he threw
a knife, it hit the bullseye every time. Before he’d gone to Ireland, Dafydd had asked Ieuan to assess the candidates for captaincy of his personal guard, and Ieuan was eyeing Venny as his first choice—which at one time would have made him laugh out loud to think he might admire a man of Norman descent enough to recommend him for promotion.
At the same time, he suspected somewhere beneath that long Norman nose and pointed chin lay some Welsh blood: Venny had a sense of humor that was right on the edge at times of getting him into trouble—and he could sing.
Now Venny nodded. “My father is Baron of Kinderton, east of Chester. No Scots have settled in the region, and nobody has ties to Scots except for—” he paused, and his face twisted into a grimace.
“Except for whom?” Cadwallon prompted.
“My lords!”
They turned as a rider approached from the north. His horse was lathered, and he himself was breathing hard.
“Thank the saints, I found you.” The man dismounted in front of Ieuan. “I am Harold of Lyons Castle. My lord Warenne learned from a rider sent by Lord Mathonwy what has befallen Princess Anna. He sent me to find you.”
“John de Warenne?” Cadwallon said. “Why?”
“He would like to assist in the search for her, requests you come to Lyons Castle to confer, and even offers it to you as a base.”
Ieuan took in a breath. This was help from a not entirely unexpected source, but one he would never take for granted.
For all that he’d lived these past years in England at Dafydd’s side, Ieuan cared not a whit for politics and the jostling among barons for power and land. He’d become a knight because he was a lord’s son, and he’d been well rewarded for his skill and loyalty. He’d never thought beyond becoming Dafydd’s captain, much less commanding all of his men throughout the whole of England.
These Normans were a different story. They lived and breathed politics and intrigue. Not only had Warenne’s daughter been John Balliol’s first wife, making Warenne the grandfather of the heir to the throne of Scotland, but his son had married a daughter of Robert de Vere, who, along with Roger Mortimer and Roger Bigod, had opposed Dafydd’s rise to power in England. This castle of Warenne’s lay some eight miles north of Overton on the Welsh side of the Dee. Like Nicholas de Carew, back in 1285, Warenne had been faced with a choice of bowing to Llywelyn or giving up the castle.
But like most Marcher lords, he had more love for his own power than for King Edward, who was dead by then anyway. Warenne had also been among those who’d sided with Simon de Montfort (and by extension Llywelyn and Gilbert de Clare) against the English throne thirty years earlier. Though he’d switched back to the royal side before the end, that animosity towards authority remained.
Once Llywelyn had been crowned king, Warenne had chosen to bend a knee to him. And then again to Dafydd, to pay homage for the rest of his lands, which remained in England. He hadn’t even rebelled with William de Valence, his wife’s brother, when Valence had tried to overthrow Dafydd. Ieuan knew Math had deliberately wooed the man, and they had remained on good terms throughout the years. Math had even offered him a radio, though Warenne had respectfully declined. Not everyone was ready for the new age Dafydd was ushering in. Warenne had heard the news of Anna’s abduction the old-fashioned way.
Thus, even though Ieuan had a momentary pang of suspicion, he took Harold at his word. If Warenne hadn’t betrayed Dafydd by allying with Valence, FitzWarin, or Clare, it would have been an odd play to be opposing him now, even if Balliol, his son-in-law, had come calling and offered great reward. Warenne had enough wealth and land to refuse, and his only son had died in a tournament in 1286. Admittedly, he had grandchildren, one of whom was Balliol’s heir. Another was Henry Percy, an upstanding young man and a follower of Dafydd, though not so close he’d gone to Ireland with him.
“How did you know where to find us?” Cadwallon asked, inherently suspicious of an offer of help from anyone other than a Welshman, even though he himself had married an Englishwoman.
“The rider who reached us said you had left at the same time he did and explained what you intended. Again, Lord Warenne has resources and men waiting for your command.”
“Please thank him for his offer and tell him we may see him before the day is out.”
Harold hesitated, obviously unhappy they weren’t coming with him, but after a moment, he bowed. “I will, my lord.” He went to his horse and mounted. At a much slower pace, he headed back the way he’d come.
After watching him go, Ieuan turned to Venny, “Who were you going to suggest?”
“Warenne.” Venny shrugged. “But that idea is obviously wrong. Are we taking him up on his offer to coordinate?”
Ieuan pursed his lips as he thought. “No. Not yet. I appreciate Warenne’s desire to help, but the trail of our quarry calls me onward. Until I know for certain Anna wasn’t with these riders, I don’t dare stray from it.”
Chapter Seventeen
19 March 1294
Bronwen
“I don’t like this any more than you do.” Bevyn’s growl was in fine form as he paced back and forth in front of Bronwen and Lili. “Though unlike you two, staying behind was my idea.”
“And we are grateful you made the sacrifice to protect us,” Bronwen assured him. “It’s just frustrating to find yet another plot against David by someone he thought was faithful.”
“Men want to be rewarded for their loyalty, but the cynical handing out of favors isn’t something Dafydd likes to do—or is good at.” Lili moved to sit in a regal chair set up in the university’s main hall. “In fact, he did do it for FitzWalter and look where it got him.”
They’d located their command center here so that, when the exhausted men returned from their scouting missions, they wouldn’t have to ride all the way up to the castle to report their findings. Plus, the university was designed to feed and house large numbers of people at one time, and nearly the entire population of the town had turned out to help with the search for Anna in one way or another.
It was strange not to see Constance at Lili’s side, as she’d been for the last six months. Similar to Lili, Constance had been a child no older than Cadell when her father had taken her to shoot with her first cut-down-to-size bow. King Edward had been alive then and had started enforcing the law that all Englishmen equip themselves with bow and arrows.
Becoming an archer couldn’t be accomplished overnight, however, and just because a man owned a bow didn’t mean he had the skill to use it. The Welsh started training their boys—and some girls—to shoot practically from birth, but the bow had never been part of English society the way it was in Wales. That made the English very late to the game, and before David had ascended the throne, the only real archers in Britain had been Welsh.
While David’s elite force of two hundred archers were made up exclusively of Welshmen, the years he’d been on the throne and actually enforced the archery laws had started to bear fruit. Despite years of practice at Constance’s side, her father still couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn door, but Constance had learned to, and so had the rest of the Englishmen in her company. Constance’s husband, Cador, was their captain, but though he called himself a Welshman, his grandmother had been English, and he spoke her language fluently, which was why Ieuan had included him on the mission too, rather than leaving him in Wales with the rest of the Welshmen.
Despite the number of people absent, or maybe because of it, Lili and Bronwen were trying to keep everything as normal as possible for the children. Thus, the older kids were at their lessons with their tutors, among them Aaron, Meg’s friend and Samuel’s father, who had retired from active medical practice to teach at Llangollen. Gwenllian, the eldest of the cousins at almost twelve, had declared her desire to attend university rather than marry at sixteen, so she was hard at work writing up a physics experiment Bronwen would rather not know anything about, since she’d gone into anthropology so she’d never have to do math again.
; Next oldest was Anna’s son, Cadell, who’d be nine this summer and was having the most difficult time of any of the children. He was old enough to understand exactly what had happened to his mother, and equally old enough to worry about it. Latin declensions were the last thing he wanted to do today, and Bronwen was considering letting him off early for archery practice instead. Though, again, he would be without Constance. Not only had Cadell’s shooting improved dramatically under her tutelage, but the two had formed a bond.
Then came Arthur, Elisa and Padrig, Catrin, and Bran, all four and five-year-olds. Their lessons were not extensive and usually took no more than an hour out of their days, but Catrin and Arthur, in particular, were on their way to reading well. Simple math and French were also on the menu in one of the classrooms down the hall from where Bronwen, Lili, and Bevyn were considering their options.
That left the two youngest, Bronwen’s Cadwaladr and Lili’s Alexander, who were currently playing with blocks and toy cars at Lili’s feet. The cars were precious commodities, having come in the backpack of one of the bus passengers, Shane, whom they’d returned to Avalon because he was sick. He’d left the toys behind as a parting gift. Fortunately, he’d carried a whole sack of them on the bus that day in Cardiff, so there were enough for both boys to be content, and there was currently no squawking between them.
“I am most concerned that the attack on Anna wasn’t an isolated incident and is part of a much larger plan,” Bevyn said.
“That’s why we called in Edmund Mortimer,” Bronwen said. “I’m hoping we will hear from him soon.”
“Tell me the truth, Bevyn,” Lili said. “Are we safe here?”
“It is as Math told Cadell. Men are posted in the watchtower on the escarpment. We will know if anyone marches into the valley long before they arrive here. We will certainly have enough warning to retreat to the castle.”
“I feel so useless.” Lili kicked her heels against the foot of the chair.
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