Chapter Eight
Llywelyn
I poked my nose into my bedroom. Marged slept on the big bed, curled around Anna, whose raven locks I could just make out above the blankets they’d pulled nearly over their heads. I can appreciate that. A day like today makes me want to hide too. I had many questions for Marged but at least I’d settled the most important one. Whatever her origins, I would no longer consider the notion that she was a spy.
Her face, when she looked at me over the body of Geraint, had been so full of pity and understanding that I’d come close to weeping. She’d seen that too, seen the effort to contain it and saved me by speaking to Goronwy herself to give me a chance to find composure.
We lost, and lost, and lost again, and I could never find my heart so hard that it didn’t rip me apart inside with each death. At least Geraint had been an old man, bent with years of age and care. He died knowing he’d left his lands and lord—his life’s work—in the capable hands of his son, Tudur. The others we’d lost had been young, one only sixteen, and we could only raise our fists and curse at the utter, bloody waste of it.
The mood of all the men was dark, taking out the despair at death with anger at the men who’d done this. But as much as I wanted to start pulling out our prisoners’ fingernails, I refrained. Now if I had Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn under my nose, Goronwy would be hard pressed to hold me back. Too bad he hid behind King Henry’s skirts where I couldn’t touch him.
I closed the door to the bedroom and turned toward the stairs that led to the kitchens. Even though it was nearly midnight, servants were still awake, preparing food and drink for those of my men who couldn’t sleep after the day’s work. The morning would come all too soon for everyone. I pushed open the door to the courtyard and strode towards the stables where Goronwy had put our two surviving prisoners.
“One’s no older than my man-at-arms who’d died,” Goronwy said in an undertone as I walked in. “Perhaps like him too, this was his first mission for his lord.”
“He will be the one you break first,” I said.
“His face is white and he’s near in tears,” Goronwy said. “Third stall from the right.”
“Not much longer now, my lord,” Hywel said.
He leaned back in a straight-back chair, his giant feet up on a trough. Lanterns blazed from hooks along the walls, sending light into the darkest corners. The stables had room for more than fifty horses, as was necessary given the number of men I often brought with me in my travels or for a day’s hunting in the forest. The manor house itself barely deserved the name, however. It had a large hall and rear kitchen, but only three rooms above stairs. And no dungeons, which is why Goronwy was using two stalls for our prisoners instead of the usual horses.
I scuffed at the floor with my boot, glad to see that attention to detail of the stable boys, even in my absence. With only fire for light, even protected within a lantern, they had to be constantly vigilant about loose hay tracked across the floor.
“Shall I bring him out, my lord?” Goronwy said.
“It’s your decision, Goronwy,” I said. “I stand by your assessment.”
Goronwy signaled to the two guards who stood on either side of the boy’s stall. One of the guards was the man, Bevyn, whose charge it had been to care for Marged. She told me she’d ordered him to leave her, but I wasn’t satisfied, even if he’d saved Goronwy’s life. It was my orders that he needed to obey; neither his nor Marged’s judgment had yet been proved, even if today’s escapade had ended well for them. It might not have.
The guards disappeared inside the stall and came out leading the boy, his hands tied behind his back. Bevyn pushed him to his knees in front of Goronwy. The boy was older than Goronwy had implied, nearer to twenty than fifteen, of middle height and thin, with reddish hair and a pointed beak of a nose.
“Your name,” Goronwy said.
The boy squared his shoulders, raising his chin in a manner that matched the fine cut of his cloak. “Humphrey de Bohun, Lord of Brecon and the Marche!”
“Ho!” Goronwy said. “Not quite yet, I don’t think.”
“I grant your family has held lands in the Marche since your ancestors came to Wales,” I said, “but Brecon Castle belongs to me, unless you have further unwelcome news?”
“No, sir,” Humphrey said. “I do not.”
I had to admire his courage and panache. He could have denied his antecedents, but then he was probably hoping I’d ransom him, as was customary among the nobility, rather than kill him, as he might have deserved. The boy didn’t appear as close to breaking as Goronwy and Hywel had thought, but then, they hadn’t known who he was before either.
“Your grandfather lives?” Goronwy said, keeping to the main point. Humphrey’s grandfather was also Humphrey de Bohun, the Earl of Hereford and one of my most formidable opponents in controlling the Marche. Humphrey’s father had died at Evesham fighting for my ally, Simon de Montfort, against King Henry. The shifting loyalties of the English nobility were often hard to keep straight.
Humphrey nodded. “He is well. He will pay for my release.”
“I bet he will,” Hywel said.
The boy’s directed a sharp look at Hywel, who gazed back at him, his face blank.
“His Welsh is better than I would have expected,” Goronwy said, in aside to me, “but perhaps it would be better to speak in French.”
At my nod, Goronwy pointed his chin at the boy. “Fran?ais, then?”
A look of relief passed through Humphrey’s eyes before he mastered it. “Thank you,” he said. “I expect you to return me to my grandfather’s house immediately.”
Hywel snorted. I smiled at that and shook my head. Goronwy needed to break through Humphrey’s upright equanimity. However much I distrusted the boy’s grandsire, I respected him, and could see his training in the grandson.
“What in the name of heaven were you doing at Coedwig Gap, involved in such a cowardly and ill-favored venture?” I said.
Humphrey’s chin quivered. Then he visibly steeled himself. The look was one I’d seen before, most recently in Marged’s eyes. Did he expect a backhand across the face? I found my temper growing hot at the thought that any man had hit her. I forced it down. Humphrey was not Marged.
“For the time being, it seems you are my guest,” I said, “provided you explain your participation in the events of today.”
“May I stand?” Humphrey asked.
“I think not,” Goronwy said. “The quicker you talk, the sooner you can get off your knees. I’m sure they’ve started to ache on this hard floor.”
No torture indeed. I smirked, remembering my Latin master forcing me to recite verbs on my knees over and over again until I got them right. The pain certainly sharpened my mind. We’d see what it did for Humphrey.
Humphrey swallowed hard. “It started out as a lark, really. Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn’s son, Owain, proposed venturing into Gwynedd to probe your defenses and see how far we could penetrate. It was easy; the roads are nearly deserted this time of year and the snowpack sparse, even in the mountains. Two days ago, Owain received a message that called him away. He left me in charge of the men. We had camped at the foot of Rhobell Fawr when one of the men who’d left with Owain returned to camp with word that you had left Castell Criccieth.”
“So you prepared the ambush?” Goronwy said.
“Owain left the rider with instructions as to what to do.”
“And the village?” Goronwy said.
I nodded. I’d not forgotten the odd absence of people there, and our uncertainty as to their fate.
“If they’re dead, it wasn’t our doing!” Humphrey said. “We came upon the empty village the day before Owain left. In his note, Owain suggested burning the village as a distraction. We did not kill anyone.”
“Just my men,” Hywel said.
“As to that,” Humphrey said, “from our end, it was worth the cost if we could take you, my lord Prince, as a prize. Our intent was not to kill you. Owain said that you would be a valuable hostage.”
Goronwy glanced at me. I raised my eyebrows, willing to take the boy at his word, for now. If the villagers had left of their own accord, we didn’t need to add their deaths to his list of crimes.
But Goronwy wasn’t done. “Owain said? Why is that all that I have heard from your mouth? What Bohun hides behind another man, no matter who he is, unable to think for himself? I would have expected more from you. So would your grandfather.”
Humphrey blinked. His face was impassive still, but a bit of doubt had crept into his eyes.
“And where is Owain now?” I said. “Obviously not here.”
“No,” Humphrey said, his voice curt. “He is not.”
“He found it convenient to have you do his dirty work,” Hywel said.
“And how do you feel about that ignoble fact?” Goronwy said. “To your grandfather, a man is one who stands up for all his actions, whether for good or ill. It is why you chose not to lie about who you are, isn’t it. You’ve learned something from your grandfather anyway.”
And why the boy might become a formidable enemy for me when he came into his inheritance. “Does your grandfather know where you are?” I said.
Humphrey didn’t answer at first. He stared at Goronwy, and then me, his jaw clenched and stiff. Then the fight went out of him. His shoulders sagged. “No. You could kill me now and put out that I fell in the battle. None would be the wiser.”
“Is that what Owain would do?” Goronwy said, not willing to make this easy on him.
Humphrey looked down at the ground, shifting uncomfortably. “I think he would.”
“One measure of a man,” Hywel said, “is with whom he associates. You might consider your choices more closely in future.”
“Are you going to kill me?” Humphrey squared his shoulders, aiming for an authority and manhood he’d just discovered he hadn’t quite achieved.
“We could,” I said. “But we won’t.”
Humphrey gazed at me, hope etched in his face.
Hywel’s eyes showed resigned contempt, but he stood and held out a hand to help the boy to his feet.
“Do you swear not to attempt an escape?” Goronwy said.
“I swear it,” Humphrey said. “On my honor as a Bohun.”
Goronwy nodded. “And perhaps you’ve suddenly discovered what that means, and you care more about it than you thought you did. You may sleep in the hall with the other men.”
“Who is your companion in the other stall?” Hywel said.
I’d forgotten him.
“He’s one of Owain’s men, one Dai ap Maredudd.”
“He’ll keep, then. He will make a good messenger to your grandfather,” Hywel said.
* * * * *
We were into the early hours of the morning before I managed to escape my duties and find my bed. With no maid to assist her in undressing, it looked as if Marged had fallen asleep in what she stood up in. I made a note to myself to remedy that in the morning. There had to be a local girl Goronwy could conscript. It was unseemly that she was unattended. I watched her breathe slowly in and out before blowing out the candle and crawling into bed beside her. Or rather, beside Anna. The thought made me smile and for the moment put away the concerns of the day.
I’d decided that we would stay in the lodge for several days, hoping for the recovery of some of my men and for reinforcements from Criccieth and Castell y Bere. We needed to spread a wide net in hopes of picking up Owain ap Gruffydd Gwenwynwyn and the men who remained with him, and to quickly determine what had happened to the inhabitants of the village. Why had they left their homes in the dead of winter? It could be for a dozen reasons—disease, famine, marauders—any one of which would require keeping a close eye on the events in the surrounding countryside.
It seemed I’d hardly closed my eyes before I woke to sunlight trickling through a crack between the wooden shutter and the frame. Anna still slept, but Marged was awake, her eyes open, studying me.
“Did you sleep well?” I asked in French. Goronwy had informed me that her Welsh had improved over the course of the ride from Criccieth—as if she were remembering something she’d merely forgotten instead of learning it from scratch—but she was more comfortable in French and I wanted precise answers this morning.
“Well enough,” she said. “I don’t know that I really expected to, after yesterday.”
“It was your first battle,” I said. “One hopes that it will be your last.”
“The older man who died was your friend. I’m sorry.” She fingered the embroidery on the pillowcase, not looking at me, and then glanced up to check my face.
“He was my seneschal,” I said. “My steward. His father served my grandfather and my Uncle Dafydd, and then when he died, Geraint took his place.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help him,” she said.
“I know. But you helped the others.”
“I hope so,” Marged said. “As you say, I’ve never seen a battle before, never even imagined it would be anything like that, despite what is shown in movies.”
There it was again. That difference. “What was that word? Movies?”
She didn’t answer, chewing on her lower lip as she thought. “I don’t think I can explain,” she said. “I don’t understand how I came to be here. I’ve been with you for two nights and a day, and already my life before coming here seems impossibly far away.”
“And where is that life? That land that speaks American?”
“You won’t believe me.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Yes,” Marged said. “I wouldn’t believe it myself if I weren’t living it.”
“Tell me,” I said. “Nothing can be as bad as you imagine. Push through your fears and just say it.”
Anna stirred. Marged smiled down at her, still stalling I thought, and swept a handful of curls out of the little girl’s face and tucked the blanket more firmly under her chin. “The bards speak of Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd,” Marged said, finally capitulating. “Nearly one hundred years ago, he sailed from Wales to a new land, a new world nobody had ever seen before.”
“Yes, of course. I know the tale well. I am a descendant of Owain Gwynedd, Madoc’s father,” I said. “Madoc sailed away to escape the infighting among his brothers at his father’s death. He returned, but then left again. He died in that land across the sea.”
Marged took in a deep breath and eased it out. I waited, not wanting to stop her now that she’d started.
“I think the easiest way to explain who I am is to say that I am a descendant of Madoc’s people,” Marged said. “I am from the land that he discovered. We call it America.”
I gazed at her, lips pursed, not quite able to marshal my thoughts for an adequate reponse. It wasn’t that she’d surprised me, though she had, but . . . “I entertained a dozen notions of who you might be, and from where you might have come, but this never occurred to me,” I said.
“How could you? How could anyone?”
“In one sentence, you have upended all expectation,” I said. “My family has wondered for generations what became of Madoc. We looked for him, trust that we did, but his sails never appeared on the horizon again. I’m glad to hear that he survived to produce descendants.”
“America has many people in it.”
“If he’d stayed in Wales,” I said, “his line may have ended, given the fratricide that followed Owain Gwynedd’s death. My grandfather was one of the few who survived it.”
Marged bit her lip and I watched her warily, since that couldn’t be all she had to say. The vehicle, for instance, remained unexplained.
“And . . .”
“The explanation gets a little more complicated after that,” she said.
“Hmm,” I said. “I imagine it might.” We lay silent, me still studying her and Marged gently curling a lock of Anna’s hair around one finger.
“Are you ready for the rest?” she said, once the silence had grown awkward. “It’s a bit harder to hear.”
“Are you going to tell me that your mother doesn’t really live in Radnor?” I said.
“No. She does.” Now, a waver entered Marged’s voice for the first time. She swallowed it. “I haven’t lied to you. Not once. I don’t want to start, either. It’s that . . . well . . . the Welsh settlers who came to America named towns for places in Wales that they loved and remembered.”
I smiled at that, just for a second, until the questions began to pile up in my mind again. “So . . .” But Marged cut in before I could properly formulate a question.
“I know what you’re thinking. I can see it in your eyes. You’re noting that I didn’t arrive in the marsh at Criccieth from a boat. You’re wondering about my vehicle—how it was made—how I brought it here.”
“Yes,” I said. “I was wondering exactly that.”
Marged took another breath. “You absorbed the first part of my explanation without too much difficulty, but the next part is harder. Please remember, when you stop believing me, that I said it was complicated.”
“I am the Prince of Wales. My life is nothing if not complicated.”
“Okay,” she said. (There was that word again, which seemed to mean everything and nothing) “I’ll tell you straight out: I’m not only from that other land but from another time.”
I stared at her. “I’m not understanding you. What do you mean—another time?”
“Please, Llywelyn,” she said. “Please tell me what year this is I’ve fallen into.”
“It is the year of our Lord, one thousand, twelve hundred and sixty-eight.”
“Oh, my lord,” Marged said. She eased back from Anna who seemed more deeply asleep now, and turned her head to bury her face in the pillow.
“That’s the second time you called me by my title,” I said. “You’re improving.”
Marged twisted back. Her hair had fallen over her face and she pushed it away. Her voice, when she spoke, had tears in it. “How can you laugh? Two days ago, I was living in the year of our Lord, one thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-six. I was born in America, seven hundred years from now.”
The smile faded from my face. For once, I was lost for words. How could that be true? She obviously believed it, and yet. . . .
Marged huddled under the covers with her hands over her ears as if a storm were raging outside instead of the clear blue winter sky. I wanted to put my arms around her and comfort her, but didn’t want to scare her.
“Marged,” I said instead, aiming for reasonableness. “Why are you telling me this? Surely you can come up with a far simpler explanation for your appearance at Criccieth without this.”
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t want to tell you,” she said, her face back in the pillow, her words muffled by the down, “but there’s no other way to explain who I am and why I know what I know.”
“You’re telling me that this is why you knew about the ambush in advance? Because you are from a future time where the events we are living now have already happened? That’s not possible, Marged.”
Marged lifted her head. “Yes and no. I knew there had been an ambush in this forest, but I still don’t remember it being an attack on you.”
“Ah yes,” I said. “You spoke to Goronwy of this ‘Owain Glendower’.”
“Owain Glend?r, really,” Meg said. “Glendower is how the English say his name.”
“And who was he?”
Marged sighed. “He was a man who attempted to unite Wales under his banner about two hundred years from now. I believe he was a descendant of one of your brothers, but I can’t remember which one. Not Dafydd. Do you have one whose name begins with R?”
“Rhodri,” I said, speaking automatically as I processed what she was saying, which appeared both more and less absurd as she added detail. “You say attempted? You know my future, then? You know what becomes of me, of Wales?”
Now Marged rolled onto her back, her fingers plucking at the blanket. “Yes,” she said. “I do. At least, I know what did happen, before I came here.”
“Now I’m lost again. Speak plainly.”
“In my century, traveling through time is talked about, speculated upon, in books and among scientists.” She tipped her head to look at me. “I don’t know what you call them in this age. Philosophers? Physicians? People who study the world and how it works.”
“Ah,” I said. “Like Aristotle.”
“Oh, yes!” Marged said. “Exactly like that. I have traveled to your world, in a fashion completely outside the range of explanation. What changes will your world incur because this happened? In the future that I left, neither books nor myth about medieval Wales mention me. Does that mean I’ve already changed history enough to make the future that I came from different? What changes will you make now in your life because I came here—or will it make no difference at all?—was I destined to come here and are we making the same choices we always made?”
“None of what you’ve just said makes any sense, Marged.”
“Tell me about it.” She lay on her back, one wrist across her eyes, completely still.
“So this is why you were afraid of me—was it only last night?” I said. “You didn’t believe me when I said I was the Prince of Wales.”
“No,” Marged said. “I didn’t. It didn’t even occur to me that you could be telling me the truth.”
“And why is that? Is there no Prince of Wales in your world?”
Meg stillness deepened. “There is, but he isn’t Welsh. He’s English . . . well . . . of German descent even, I think. His mother is the Queen of England.”
“What is this leading to, Marged? What do you need to say to me that you’re not saying? If I accept your proposition that you are from the future, than you do, indeed, believe you know mine. You believe there is a future for me that I’m not going to like, isn’t there?”
Marged flipped the blanket over her face but her voice came through it, strong and steady. “In late November, 1282, you travel south, out of Gwynedd. On December 11th, you are lured away from your men by a false promise of allegiance and killed. With your death, King Edward . . .” she pulled the covers down again and glanced at me. “He’s not king yet, is he?”
“No,” I said. “It’s his father, Henry.”
She nodded. “Edward subjugates Wales so completely that it’s two hundred years before any Welshman attempts to claim the title Prince of Wales. Even in my day, Wales is subsumed into England. With your death, Wales ceases to exist as a separate country. Though,” she amended, “the Welsh have never forgiven or forgotten their subjugation. And they’ve never forgotten you. You are a symbol to them of all that is Welsh. A martyr, even.”
I absorbed this news with more equanimity than I would have thought possible ten minutes ago. Fourteen years. She thought I had fourteen more years. There was a freedom in that that perhaps Marged had not considered.
“Who betrayed me?”
“Roger something and his brother. I can’t remember the name . . . Morgan? No, that’s not right because the traitors were Marcher lords, not Welshmen.”
It was my turn to roll onto my back and fling my own arm over my eyes. “Mortimer,” I said. “You’re telling me that I plan to meet the Mortimers and instead meet my death? Why would I do such an crazed thing? Why would I think I could trust them?”
“I don’t know,” Marged said. “The English found a paper on your body addressed to you. It was from one of these Mortimers and indicated he might be willing to switch allegiance. Maybe you thought that sounded credible at the time?”
“And my heir?” he said. “Do I have one?”
“Before your death, you marry someone,” Marged said. “I can’t remember who, though, and have a daughter. I’m sorry to say that your wife dies in childbirth. That’s in 1282 also.”
“Not a very good year for me, then, it doesn’t sound,” I said.
Marged rolled over to face me, astonishment written all over her face. “Again, you laugh at this? How can you laugh?”
“How can I not?” I said. “You fell into my life two days ago, saved my life yesterday, only to warn me that I will lose it, at some future date. How is this not ridiculous? How can I not laugh?”
“You believe me, then?”
I gazed at her, taking in her features and her beauty. “I don’t know. The fate you describe sounds . . . complicated, as you said. Roger Mortimer’s father married my aunt, making him my cousin. In turn, Mortimer’s wife has two sisters. One married my Uncle Dafydd and was Princess of Wales. The other is the mother of one Humphrey de Bohun, who is sleeping in the hall below us as we speak and was one of the men who orchestrated the attack on us yesterday.”
“So you are murdered by your own family?” Marged gasped. “That’s . . . that’s . . . terrible!”
I smiled, warmed by her outrage on my behalf, but rueful. “Roger and I have been enemies in recent years, but I find it hard to believe he would lure me to his castle to kill me.”
“I don’t think it was actually him,” Meg said. “I think it was his sons.”
“Oh, well then. Perhaps that’s more credible,” I said. “That’s the nature of politics in the Marche.”
“So what does this mean to you, right now? What are you going to do with Anna and me?” Her voice was suddenly very small. “I would go home but I don’t know how.”
I twisted a long lock of her hair around my finger. “This changes everything, and nothing,” I said. “The most important thing for you to know is that unless you have a different home to go to, you’re going to stay with me.”
“You mean that? I’m sorry to have to even ask this, but why do . . . do . . do you want me?” Marged stumbled over the question, more uncertain than she’d been even when she was telling me her fabulous tale.
“How can I let you loose in the world? You would be a danger to yourself and everyone around you. Besides,” I paused, considering my own certainty in the matter, “I’ve grown fond of seeing you—and even Anna—in my bed.”
“B-b-but,” Marged said, stuttering again. “You don’t know me. Not at all.”
“Don’t I?” I said. “I think I’ve learned quite a lot about you in the short time we’ve been together. And I expect to learn quite a bit more in the coming days.” I took her chin in my hand. “Being the Prince of Wales has its advantages, every now and then, apart from dying for my people, that is. Occasionally, I get to do what I like.”
I kissed her forehead and released her. Her eyes were as wide as Anna’s sometimes were, watching me. I got out of bed and dressed quickly in the cold room. “Llywelyn—” she said, but I shushed her.
“Get some sleep, while you can,” I said. And for once, she had the grace to obey.