Daughter of Time: A Time Travel Romance (31 page)

On the other side of the green, I found my
favorite stall—the one that made scented soaps. I wasn’t allowed
lavender anymore, since it could induce miscarriage, but many other
scents attracted me and it was a heady mix to stand under the tent
and block out the rest of the market. I knew the soap-maker well,
so I was surprised to see a new person, a young man, turn to me
today.

“Madam,” he said.

“Good morning.” I looked hard at him,
recognizing his voice but not sure from where. Then he tugged his
hood back so I could see his face and put one finger to his
lips.

“How may I help you today?” he said, in a
loud voice

I stepped closer and lowered mine.
“Humphrey! What are you doing here? Why are you disguised?”

“Where is the Prince?” he asked, tense and
urgent.

“He left us four days ago for Bwlch, to meet
Clare. The conference is set for this afternoon.”

Humphrey swore. “My grandfather believes
that Clare will betray him.”

I sucked in a breath. “Why? How do you
know?”

“We’ve had word,” he said grimly.

“I warned him myself,” I said. “It wasn’t
that he didn’t listen, but he thinks everything is a trap and said
he would take the usual precautions.”

“He may need more than the usual,” Humphrey
said, “if my grandfather is right. It’s possible Clare brings an
army against him.”

Feeling faint, I looked for Bevyn. Spying
him, I gestured him closer and then turned back to Humphrey. “Why
are you hiding? You could have walked into the hall to tell me
this.”

“The tension among my grandfather’s allies
in the Marche is such that he would rather nobody knew of our
involvement.”

“And yet you came to warn us?”

Humphrey gazed at me, his eyes like flint,
looking far older than his nineteen years. “You expected otherwise
from me?”

“I didn’t know,” I said. “When you left us,
you didn’t know yourself.”

“What is it?” Bevyn said. Then he recognized
Humphrey and his face reddened. “What are you doing here?”

“The Prince is in danger,” Humphrey
said.

“Someone must ride to warn Llywelyn.” I
tugged on Bevyn’s sleeve. “Humphrey says that an entire army might
wait for him in Bwlch.”

Bevyn studied Humphrey. “I don’t trust
you.”

“You don’t have to trust me,” Humphrey said,
“but you must ride for Bwlch immediately.”

“Bevyn, please,” I said. “We have few men in
the garrison, but they could leave within the hour. I would go to
him, but I can’t, not—”

“I can,” Humphrey said. “I have men waiting
for me on the hills above Felinfach. The Prince will need
them.”

Bevyn came alive at that. “No Bohun is going
to lead the rescue of my prince. Leave the soaps and come to the
castle. Tudur needs to hear of this and he can decide who rides and
who doesn’t.”

Humphrey tugged his hood over his face
again. Bevyn hustled him down the road toward the castle, swerving
in and among the other revelers until they were lost from view.

“Where’s Bevyn going?” Rhodri’s head was
turned toward the spot Humphrey and Bevyn had been, and now made
his way to my side, still carrying Anna.

“To the castle. The Prince is walking into
an ambush,” I said. “We need to get back. Tudur is going to need
you.”

Chapter
Twenty-
two

T
he standing stones
that peppered the countryside in Wales had always drawn my
interest. Gwynedd had its share. Some of my people were afraid of
them, but when I touched them, felt the stone underneath my
fingers, I remembered my ancestors who’d placed them there, for
reasons they’d not passed down to us. Only one standing stone stood
on the hill at Bwlch, a forlorn thing, left to itself in a meadow,
half way up a hill that was hidden by trees on every side.

Goronwy and I bent over a map, spread out on
the table in the hall at our borrowed castle. The sun hadn’t yet
risen, but he’d already sent out scouts to quarter the area.
Tretower Castle was another ten miles on, and that was the
direction, we presumed, from which Clare would come.

“It’s the mountains behind that worry me,”
Goronwy said. “His men could hide in the miles of forest and rock
up there.”

“Which will make the going rough,” I said.
“We will take the proper precautions, listen to what Clare has to
say, and be on our way.”

Goronwy grunted. “We can always take to the
river,” he said. “The Usk is just on the other side of the road. We
can follow it all the way home if need be.”

“So be it,” I said. “We’ve done what we can.
I can hear Meg’s warnings in my ears, but this is a chance I feel
we must take.”

We rode out an hour later at the head of a
column of men, just as the sun peered over the tops of the peaks
behind us. The trees grew more thickly on both sides of the road
the further south and west we progressed. At Bwlch, we would leave
the road, though it continued ahead to an old fort the Romans
abandoned long ago another mile on. I hoped that my men had not
been afraid to enter it, because it would be a perfect place to
hide, if Clare had betrayal on his mind.
Too late to tell them
now.

As we approached the field which Clare had
indicated we would meet, Goronwy reined in. Together we looked
through the trees, up the slope to the meadow where the stone stood
sentinel, guarding its meadow since before Christ was born.

“I don’t like it,” he said.

“You never do.” I spurred Glewdra up the
hill. The thirty men behind us followed, milling around the stone
uncertainly when we realized we were all alone.

Goronwy urged his horse closer. “What
now?”

I shrugged. “We wait, I guess. I don’t—”

“My lord!” One of my men shrieked the words,
an instant before a hail of arrows poured out of the trees above
us. I flung up my shield instinctively and arrow hit it, just in
the place my head had been a moment before. I spun Glewdra around
to call to my men but they’d already broken apart and reformed
around me, protecting me at the same time they made to charge
towards the line of archers. Goronwy rode on my left, cursing
steadily as he struggled to keep close to my side.

Another hail of arrows hit us and three
horses went down, causing the men behind them to swerve out of the
way. Then a third barrage. By that time, however, we’d reached the
crest of the hill and the archers broke ranks at our approach. I
urged Glewdra to leap over the stakes they’d placed in front of
their lines, intending to run the archers down, but as the fastest
of them disappeared behind a thick screen of trees, a company of
cavalry took their place, charging out of the woods directly at
us.

“May God protect us!” Hywel said. He too had
an arrow in his shield. He spurred his horse to the side and wove
between the men, determined to position himself properly to stave
off the first assault.

Then I lost sight of him as our enemies hit
us, as unstoppable a force as a boulder rolling down hill. They
tore into our lines—tore them apart—with their momentum and
numbers. Goronwy disappeared in the roiling mass of men and horses
and I yanked Glewdra sideways to avoid a fallen log that blocked my
retreat. Another horse fell in front of me and a pike caught
Glewdra’s leg. She stumbled and couldn’t right herself. I tugged my
feet out of the stirrups and jumped free before she crushed me
beneath her. She struggled and twisted, but her legs had failed
her, probably forever.

I’d lost my shield somewhere in the fray and
wielded my sword with both hands, the sweat dripping in my eyes
beneath my helmet. I tried to maneuver away from the main force of
English soldiers, keeping to the high ground as I searched for men
wearing my colors in the blur around me. I confronted a man equal
in height to me, made all the taller by his high-plumed helmet. We
struggled to find our footing on the grassy slope.

Then suddenly Goronwy appeared and hacked at
the man from behind. As soon as he’d killed that man, he backed
towards me as he tried to fend off the relentless attack. Hardly a
man remained on horseback this far up the hill. A sea of red tunics
surrounded us. As I slashed at the soldiers in front of me, a voice
in my head cursed my stupidity more loudly with every second that
passed.
I should never have come. Dear God, how many men have we
lost? I should have known better.

My strength waned, even as Goronwy and I
stood back to back, fending off one attacker after another. My
chest heaved with the effort and I flailed out with my sword, no
longer under control. Beyond our immediate assailants, ten of
Clare’s men formed a perimeter around us, having ceased to fight.
Finally, the closet of Clare’s men took a long pace away from us. I
still held them off with my sword, but no one challenged me.
Goronwy and I had lost and had no place to run.

One of the men held up his sword, in mock
salute, and pulled off his helmet. Gilbert de Clare stood in front
of me, unmistakable with his mane of red hair turning prematurely
gray.

He bared his teeth. “Now, the negotiations
begin.”

I lowered my sword, speechless. Why didn’t
he run me through and be done with it?

Then another man joined Clare, strolling out
from under the trees into which the archers had run. “A Prince does
not kill a Prince, cousin.” Edward pulled off his own helmet. “I
just wanted your undivided attention.”

At his approach, I raised my sword again,
needing to keep him, of all my enemies, at bay. “Does your father
know of this escapade? We are at peace, are we not, with a treaty
signed with your own hand?”

“Treaties are made to be broken.” Edward
gestured at the carnage around us. “A few men is a small price to
pay for a kingdom, is it not?”

“A few men,” Goronwy whispered from behind
me in Welsh. “Good men.”

“What do you want?” I said.

Clare spread his hands wide. “My lands back.
Castle Morcraig abandoned, Gruffydd ap Rhys back where he belongs,
in Ireland where I put him, and the ability to build my castle at
Caerphilly unhindered by you.”

“That is my land, not yours. The people
support me and I claim it by right of treaty with England and
through my grandfather, who won it at the point of a sword.”

“You forget your place,” Edward said.

I glared at him. “It is my land.”

Now Edward laughed. “Whose men are dying at
his feet? Whose own life hangs in the balance? I assure you it
isn’t mine. The moment you die, all Wales will fall to me.”

That was terrifyingly prophetic, but I
firmed my chin and answered. “I am the Prince of Wales. Your father
called me thus and what you do now violates every principle of God
and man.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Edward said.
“That is what you don’t appear to understand. You and your line are
of the past. What is principle when the rule of a nation is at
stake?”

“You have no honor,” I said.

Edward coughed and laughed at the same time.
“Honor! I see now that you cling to the past. I am the Prince of
England. I will rule my country and yours; you will bow to me. I am
of the future and I tell you now, an independent Wales has no place
in that future.”

I stared at him, finding it impossible to
voice my horror at his words. He was a madman, and yet the most
powerful man in my world. “Your father—”

“My father is not long for this world,”
Edward said. “When I return from Crusade, I will take your country.
God wills it.”

I shook my head.

“Give me Senghennydd,” Clare said, keeping
to his main point, though he glanced at Edward, nearly as horrified
as I. If there was no Wales, there might be no Marche.
Is it
only now that he realizes he is in bed with a viper?

“No,” I said. “We have the King’s
peace.”

“You have no army; I see one man beside you,
the rest are dead or wounded on the ground. Who’s to say how you
die this day? I could kill you and no one would be the wiser. Why
should I wait for all Wales to fall to me?”

“My brother, Dafydd, would fight you.”

“Your brother is a weak man, vain and full
of bluster. He leagues with you, he leagues with me. Has he shifted
in the wind again?” Edward shrugged. “So he would fight, but he’s
not strong enough to withstand my wrath.”

“My brother plots with you?”

“You are mighty slow, old man.” Edward said.
“Your brother sent a report to me of a plan to ambush you in
Gwynedd. I believe the Bohun whelp was in on it, along with
Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn’s son. Obviously, they failed and your
brother fears my response.”

“You’ve not heard from him since the
spring?”

“Why do you harp on this issue? Do you not
understand that before long I will bring the full force of my power
to Wales? You stand here thinking yourself noble, but it will not
last, not when I am King.”

Goronwy cleared his throat. “A Prince does
not kill a Prince, you said.”

Edward smiled, a similar smirk to the one my
brother often used, but backed up with eyes that glinted like
steel, and a backbone to match. “Made to be broken,” Edward
whispered. He raised his sword as did the men in the circle that
surrounded us.

I raised mine. All was lost. I had a thought
for Meg and the child she carried, and a hollow fear that they
wouldn’t live out the day, if either Edward, or Dafydd, caught her.
What was honor, when my life was lost? Perhaps Meg could answer me
that, but I had no answers for her.

“Cymry!” The chorus echoed across the hills
and no sound could ever have been more beautiful.

I couldn’t see them from where I stood, but
Edward and Clare’s response told me all I needed to know. Fifty at
least, I reasoned, pounding toward us down the road from Brecon.
Edward and Clare glanced at each other. Edward saluted me with his
sword, sheathed it, and walked to his horse which cropped the
grass, so well trained that the smell of fear and sweat and blood
of battle hadn’t discomforted it. By the time he was mounted, Clare
and his men had melted into the trees, leaving Goronwy and me all
alone on the hill.