“My grandfather understands there might not be a right answer,” Cassie said. “But we’ve got to come up with something better.”
Chapter Twelve
November 1291
David
Given what his father had looked like when David had forced him into his bed in the early hours of the morning, he’d been prepared to tell him that there was no way he was continuing with the army towards Maentwrog. But when Dad appeared shortly before noon, he seemed like a completely different person from the man David had put to bed.
“What are you looking at?” Dad said when he caught David staring.
David hastily cleared his expression and deflected his father’s question. “I gather you slept well?”
“Strangely enough, I did.” Dad swung his arms back and forth, loosening his shoulders. “I’m not in my dotage yet, you know.”
“You’ve mentioned that before,” David said, and then opted for the truth. “I don’t know when I’ve ever seen you as gray as you were last night, except when you’ve been ill.”
“I might have lost a step or two, but I make up for it in cunning.” He shot his son a wicked grin, again belying his earlier exhaustion. “I’ve been thinking about our friend Madog.”
“I’m listening,” David said.
Dad took a bite of mutton, chewing hard, and then swallowed. David had learned to eat mutton for breakfast, but he was suddenly envious of Anna, who might be getting cheerios. If she was safe. Worry for her and Mom had David’s stomach clenching, and he put down his buttered roll, no longer hungry.
“I’ve decided that I know what this is about,” Dad said. “And it isn’t about his ancestral lands in Meirionnydd. Or at least only peripherally.”
“Okay,” David had no clue where this was going.
“It’s about gold.”
David had grown fond of gold in the last three years since he’d become King of England. If land meant power, so did cold, hard cash. And in the Middle Ages, gold was cash. “What gold?”
Dad snapped his fingers at one of the pages standing near a doorway that led to a corridor off the great hall. “Bring me the map on my desk. The big one.”
“Yes, my lord.” The page ducked a bow and dashed off, returning a minute later with a two foot square piece of parchment.
Dad whipped it out of the boy’s hand and laid it on the table, using two cups, a pitcher, and a knife to hold down the corners, which wanted to roll back up. It was a map of Gwynedd, one drawn by Mom and Bronwen, from their own memories and using the maps of this time as reference. Distances were hard to gauge in the Middle Ages, and drawn coastlines didn’t always translate to geographical maps like this one.
Latitude was easily determined by the angle of the sun, but longitude was harder. Two years ago, David had printed out an internet account of how navigators had worked out longitude. Upon his return to this world, he’d presented the various options to the scholars at Cambridge and Oxford, who’d shared it with their counterparts on the Continent.
The working out of how to determine longitude, particularly at sea, was one of the greatest collective scientific endeavors in history. David didn’t want to short circuit the advancements that came with those efforts, so, as in that other world, the British crown was offering a considerable prize for the person or persons who came up with a workable system that could be implemented on land and sea. GPS, sadly, wasn’t an option. But a working chronometer? David was counting on it.
“I know you are hoping that your mother returns with a survey of the mineral deposits in Wales,” Dad said. “I will be interested to see how accurate such a map could be, and if our finds match your world’s.”
It hadn’t occurred to David that the resources below ground might be different in this universe. It didn’t seem like they should be. He gestured to the map in front of them. “What does this map tell you?”
Dad planted a finger on Carndochen, a second at Cymer in Dolgellau, and a third at Harlech. “These three castles. What do you see?”
“If a man were to control those positions, he would control all passage in and out of that region of Meirionnydd,” David said.
“Very good,” Dad said. “More to the point, Carndochen and Cymer are also locations where gold has been found. I have sent men several times to survey the area, using local men as guides, but other than a few rocks and flecks of gold sifted out of the river, they have found nothing productive. It’s my guess that Madog has found more, perhaps a great deal more.”
“Could he keep such a find a secret?” David said.
Dad looked at him.
“What?”
“This is gold, son,” he said gently. “The man who finds a vein of it running through the earth would want to keep that knowledge to himself, wouldn’t he?”
David nodded, reorienting his thinking from a global to a local scale. “He might need help extracting it, however. He might tell his lord under the pledge that he would share the profits.”
Dad’s mouth twitched. “Where Madog is concerned, that would be a good way to get oneself killed, but a peasant might not know that.”
“Can I ask you a question?” David said.
“Of course.” Dad rolled up the map and slipped the tie around it.
“Many barons in England have behaved similarly to Madog and Rhys,” David said. “Some have supported my enemies, and I have taken their lands—like you did with Madog. Others, like Rhys, you have left in place, though with a much diminished patrimony. Why the difference, and how did you decide how to deal with each one?”
Dad scoffed. “You ask me this question, but it is no less than what I have been asking myself.” He pressed his lips together for a moment, thinking. Then he said, “Taking Rhys’s circumstances first, I never meant to bicker with either him or his cousin, Wynod. In the early days of my rule, when I was trying to conquer all of Wales and hold off the English at the same time, I gave more land to Wynod’s father than to Rhys’s. Rhys’s father abandoned me immediately. Wynod’s remained faithful—for a while.”
Dad sighed. “It was a purely political calculation, and one I believed at the time I had to make, though clearly we are harvesting its fruits now. Twenty years later, Rhys surrendered to Edward early in the 1277 war. Wynod did too, a little more rapidly than I might have hoped, though he’d had little choice, given the enemies that surrounded him. He returned to my side in 1282, however, and I forgave him his lapse.”
“Didn’t Mom say that in our old world Wynod stood by Wales after your death?” David said.
“He was the last to surrender after Dafydd was captured,” Dad said. “Your mother has also told me that even Rhys regretted his allegiance to Edward before the end.”
“And that is why you were more lenient with him,” David said, comprehension dawning. “You hoped that by returning his lands to him, you could mend the rift between you.”
“Obviously, my attempts have failed in that regard,” Dad said. “I won’t take lands from Wynod to augment Rhys’s, and he cannot forgive me for it.”
“What about Madog?” David said.
“His is a different situation entirely,” Dad said. “His father sided with my brothers against me at Bryn Derwin in 1257, and I deprived him of his lands as a result. He refused to swear fealty to me, lived off the largesse of King Edward until his death, and Madog himself was born in England. I didn’t even know that Madog spoke Welsh until he showed up at Brecon in the company of Rhys last year.”
“Could be that Rhys is using him,” David said.
Dad guffawed. “If Madog doesn’t realize that, he is a fool.”
Then Ieuan came through the door to the great hall and strode toward the dais. “Whenever you’re ready, my lords.”
Ever since the company had arrived in the early hours of the morning, messengers and scouts had been flowing in and out of Aber in a steady stream, some confirming information Dad already knew, others adding to it, and a few correcting bits of misinforma
tion. One of the most important tidbits had been brought as a by-the-way from a villager who’d fled from Carndochen to Dolwyddelan in the night. Dad’s castellan there had sent a pigeon a half hour before, reporting that the vast majority of the men in Madog’s army were from southern Wales. For all Madog’s claim that he was fighting for his ancestral lands, Madog’s supposed people hadn’t flocked to him. They were flocking to Dad instead.
“We’re ready now.” Dad rose to his feet, the map still in his hand, and headed for the exit. On his way out the door, he handed the map to Ieuan.
“What’s this?” Ieuan said to David as he stopped beside him, watching Dad tromp down the steps to where his horse waited.
“It’s a way to secure the peace, once we’ve won the war,” David said.
Ieuan didn’t open the map, just tapped the parchment against his leg, observing the men with David. They looked as ready as they could be, especially given the short notice. “It’s the war I’m concerned about,” Ieuan said. “It may be that Madog has no men of his own, and his father’s people haven’t rallied to him, but that means we’re facing bowmen from Deheubarth. They don’t miss.”
Welsh archers were renowned throughout Europe for the power and accuracy of their bows. Archery, unfortunately, was not a skill that David had mastered in the nine years he’d lived in the Middle Ages. His father had believed wrestling and sword fighting were more important. David could pull a bow, but that was all that could be said for his skills. Ieuan, on the other hand, like David’s wife, was a master.
“I am reluctant to fight other Welshmen too,” David said. “It would be my preference to give them the chance to defect back to us before this war gets more out of hand.”
Ieuan didn’t quite roll his eyes, but his mouth twisted. “They are traitors, my lord.”
“They go where their lord points,” David said. “Many may feel that they don’t have a choice but to fight for Rhys and consequently for Madog. But I’m not interested in making any more permanent enemies. Nor is my father. We always have to make peace out of war, and it’s never an easy task.”
“It hasn’t been so bad in England since Valence’s death,” Ieuan said.
“True, but he was a foreigner to the English in the first place, many of the men who fought with him this last time were from Ireland, and his Norman peers didn’t like him much either. He’d lost the war before it had even started, though none of us knew it at the time.”
More rebellions like Valence’s—and Rhys’s—were precisely the kind of threat that could derail David’s plan for a united Britain before he even started. He could handle the messiness of democracy. He didn’t need to be the King of England, provided nobody else was king either. Madog and Rhys, however, wanted to carve away their little slices of Wales for their own benefit and set themselves up as absolute rulers.
Wales’ problem had always been a lack of the administrative infrastructure that any government needed to maintain itself. When it had a strong king, all went well. When he died, however, either his sons fought over the carcass or, even if the transition went smoothly, the new ruler might not be as capable a leader as his predecessor. The history of both England and Wales was riddled with such instances.
Having a Parliament helped, but it didn’t solve the problem. If an idiot sat on the throne—and had the traditional power of the throne—he could wreak all sorts of havoc. King George III, the man who lost the American colonies, was certifiably insane. That wasn’t any way to run a country.
Nor, quite frankly, was this.
When the former Soviet Union broke up, it was because Russia had conquered its neighbors and held on to them by force. It wasn’t any surprise that when change came, their colonies wanted to rule themselves. The same was true for Scotland and Wales in that other world. They’d been conquered and held by force. In the world David came from, even after seven hundred years, many Welshmen resented English rule.
But a democracy was different. When a region agreed to abide by the law of the land, it couldn’t throw a fit or threaten to take its bat and go home when things didn’t go its way. When that happened, things got nasty (e.g. the American Civil War). If Rhys and Madog objected to Dad’s rule, they should have gone to Brecon and made their case before Parliament. Because they hadn’t done that, Dad was going to have to put them down instead.
So it was that Dad and David rode out of yet another castle. The ranks of men had swelled to three times their original number. Every man in North Wales who could ride a horse had ridden it to Aber. The rest marched. They couldn’t make the full distance to Maentwrog today, but if the weather remained fine, they could reach it by tomorrow. And then Dad would see about taking Harlech back.
At Bangor, the company would turn southwest and take the road to Caernarfon. A small motte and bailey castle that a Norman had built centuries ago lay eight miles from Bangor and defended the western end of the Menai Strait. Dad planned to rest there. No Norman had controlled the castle since before the time of Owain Gwynedd, and Dad had shored it up since 1282, taking advantage of its prime location. It was after they reached Caernarfon that Dad and David would go their separate ways: David to take the more southwestern road to Criccieth, and Dad to travel due south to the muster at Maentwrog.
David still didn’t like it. He still thought it was a waste of his skills and men to send him to Criccieth. He spent most of the journey to Bangor organizing his reasons as to why he should ride to Maentwrog too. David had actually opened his mouth to voice them when a scout burst from the trees to the south of the road.
“My lords! My lords!”
They reined in. The scout’s horse danced and spun as he struggled to get the animal under control. Ieuan dismounted and caught the bridle, putting a hand on the horse’s forehead to calm it. The others gathered around.
The scout took in a breath. “Sire, I bring information of Madog’s movements in the south. He has split his force and has left just enough men at Harlech to maintain the siege. He marches even now towards you.”
“He’s looking to confront us directly?” David said.
“We should have known that we couldn’t catch him by surprise,” Carew said.
“And he should know that he can’t catch us by surprise.” Dad’s brow was heavily furrowed. “What is he thinking?”
“Madog can’t maintain the siege if we come behind him,” Ieuan said. “It makes sense for him to challenge us if he thinks he can stop you before your army has fully gathered.”
“He marches with many men, my lord. More than I see here.” The scout gestured to the cavalry behind them. “He has passed Maentwrog and continues north on the road to Caernarfon.”
“He marches through Beddgelert?” Dad said. That was the same road south that Dad had intended to take from Caernarfon.
“My lord.” Carew lifted a hand to Dad, who nodded at him. “If Madog chooses the ground and the timing, and has more men than we have, I can understand his daring. If he meets us on the road to Maentwrog, we will have only cavalry and whatever footmen can catch us by the time we reach his position.”
“We should go around,” Ieuan said. “Take the western road.”
David scoffed a laugh. “Or we could all ride to Criccieth and relieve Harlech by sea.”
“Or we could end this tonight,” Dad said.
There was a moment’s pause. David saw the eyes of some of the others shift from Dad to him. They were waiting for him to speak. Cowards.
David sighed. “Which is exactly what Madog would expect you to decide.”
“Good.” Dad’s eyes lit. “We shall be utterly predictable … except where we’re not.”
David studied the expressions on the other men. Cadwallon looked eager for anything, but that was his normal state. Justin tugged on one ear. He would go wherever David pointed and not question what he asked of him. Samuel’s face was impassive. His father had taught him to keep his feelings to himself.
Ieuan and Carew, however, had ye
ars of experience in battle. Ieuan was rubbing his jaw, thinking hard, while Carew tapped rhythmically on the hilt of his sword with his left hand. Nobody was leaping about with enthusiasm at Dad’s suggestion, but neither were they arguing with it.
“We need to keep our eyes on the goal,” Carew said. “Is that Harlech or—”
“Defeating Madog is the goal,” David said, “just as defeating Dad is his.”
Dad looked at David, eyebrows raised. “So you do support confronting him?”
“Isn’t it my job to play devil’s advocate?” David said. Some of the men frowned, perhaps not sure of that particular phrase, so he hurried on, “You are right that we can deal with the army in front of Harlech at our leisure once Madog is taken care of. I’m just concerned that he has all the advantages. We need to create some for ourselves.”
“We would need eyes and ears,” Carew said.
David turned in his saddle, gazing around him at the trees that encroached the road. They were only a few hundred yards past the crossroads at Bangor where three paths had met: the first led back to Aber and was the road they’d taken to get here; the second, the road they were on now, led to Caernarfon; and the third headed south into the mountains, to Dolbadarn, Dad’s fortress in western Snowdonia. The decision they made in the next few minutes would determine which road they took—and possibly the course of the future of Wales.
What was happening right at this moment was very similar to what David had faced with every war he’d fought in the Middle Ages: he had access to hours-old information about the movements of his enemies and no way to communicate with his allies in a timely fashion. David had never grown used to it; it was a stupid way to fight a war, but in the Middle Ages, it was the only way. They were going to have to decide what path to take—right here, right now—and live with the consequences of that decision.
Ashes of Time (The After Cilmeri Series) Page 15