Uneasy Lies the Crown (34 page)

“Welcome. Please sit,” Owain said, indicating a single stool opposite him.

Rieux snorted and stabbed a finger northward. “You waste time. Strike now!”

Edmund, who held a white plumed quill in his hand, finished his last stroke. “Done,” he proclaimed, studying the document before him. The Welsh stared intently at the lines of black, as if willing them to march from the page and achieve their purpose. Their trance was not broken until Rieux ripped the document away and the inkwell went toppling into Edmund’s lap. He shot back from the table, ink seeping between the links of his mail.

Clutching the parchment in his hand, the marshal shook it at Owain. “Explain! What is this?”

Silence swallowed everyone inside the tent. The din from the troops had quelled, strangely punctuating the very moment. A long, gaping second later a single shout of ‘
Cymru
!’ arose from ten thousand throats and the clamor went on as it had for hours. Owain rose. He circled the table, brushing past Hugueville and Le Borgue. When he halted before the marshal, their difference in build was apparent: he was a head and a half taller and twice the muscle.

“I did not come here seeking blood,” Owain said. “And don’t fear that I have betrayed you. Far from it.”

A blank stare met Owain’s revelation. Then Rieux laughed. “You are a fool! Bolingbroke’s men... they have been marched to death. You stole provisions. Who has the advantage here? I say it is not him.”

“Advantage? What advantage? This is English territory we’re in. All Henry has to do is wag his finger and the next village will dump their grain and kegs onto the back of a wagon for him. Those supplies were meant to sustain us, if need be.” Deeply fatigued, Owain sighed and glanced around him—at Edmund, dabbing at his armor with a kerchief, at Maredydd, studying his father with great care, and at Rhys, dampening his anger toward Rieux in deference to Owain. “We have no advantage. None. This is a stalemate. At best, we’re equally matched. But only as we stand now. If we leave the hill to sally forth and attack, it is the English staring down on us, spears poised and aimed at our very hearts, arrows snug against their strings. Henry is a cautious commander. And no more or less a fool than me. So deem me the fool if you will. ’Tis that other fool watching us I have great respect for.”

“Respect?For your enemy?” His chest plate heaving, Rieux clenched his teeth. The words slid out from his pinched mouth. “They have just marched thirty leagues! Their tongues—they drag the ground. Their horses are soaked with sweat. They are weak and they have come to you, mighty prince. Is this not what you have waited for? You begged my king for an army—on hands and knees! And now we come and you will not move from this hill?”

Owain’s eyes met with Rhys’s. For a moment, he faltered in his will. It was true what Rieux said. Any leader with a sliver of ambition would have seized at it. The English were drained. Victory on the field today—would mean an end. A final, irrevocable answer to years of passionate prayer. A deliverance from centuries of unjust oppression. From slavery and thievery. Freedom called out to him, but its price was heavy. There were too many doubts in his head chasing each other, chanting. On the opposing hand, a defeat—and all would be for nothing. If they were vanquished at the point of English swords here and now, the cause was gone forever. Sucked into some great void. And then, the misery of Wales would fall upon Owain’s head.

A hundred years too early?
Had Hopkyn interpreted the prophecies wrongly? Perhaps he was not
Y Mab Darogan
after all.

Owain’s tongue slid over parched lips. “King Charles has played this game shrewdly all along. How sincere was his commitment I have more than often wondered, but never spoke of until now. He has sent me enough of an army to make a show, but far from enough to do the job resoundingly. In the meantime, while we have dashed about from cave to hilltop to forests thick, we have learned a thing or two about those bloody Englishmen whose ankles you have come to bite at.” Hands locked behind his back, for it was the safer place for them to be, he looked at the marshal squarely. “Fatigue has never hindered an English army. Hotspur assumed it would and Shrewsbury was —”

“My prince!” Gethin shot into the tent and plunged at Owain’s feet. Excitement gleamed in his eyes. “He will hear your terms.”

In slow motion, Marshal de Rieux laid the parchment out on the table. Le Borgue and Hugueville swarmed to peer over his low shoulders. He scanned through the demands, and then stepped back. “You think that Bolingbroke will agree to any of this?” He beckoned to his men. “Fool... and coward,” he admonished as he strode from the tent.

45

Near Worcester, England — September, 1405

When the terms were read to King Henry by Greyndour, his left eyebrow arched upward. He might not have believed Glyndwr’s outlandish arrogance, except that he had dealt with the man for too many years already. The Welshman was cunning, if not a bit insane. “My silver wash basin and a candle—lit, please.”

Beneath the treasured shade of a tree, Prince Harry and the English commanders watched as a soldier held the tarnished silver bowl before the king. Henry curled a finger at Greyndour, who still cradled the document in his hands.

Holding the lit candle at an angle so the hot wax would not drip on his hand, the king passed it beneath the parchment. The edge blackened. In moments, a hungry orange flame began to devour the page. Sir Gilbert Talbot received the candle and blew it out. The ashes gathered in the bowl. As the fire licked closer to Greyndour’s fingers, he relinquished the document to the silver bowl.

Sweat poured into Henry’s eyes and he blinked away its sting. With a soaked palm, he pushed his hair off his forehead. Then he took the bowl and held it aloft with its smoking contents. “Deliver my answer.”

Talbot took the bowl from the king’s steady hands and draped a kerchief of red silk over it, smothering the fading fire into a pile of cinders. Once Greyndour was mounted and helmeted, Talbot gave the bowl to him.

As Greyndour and a small party of knights rode down into the valley, the king turned to his son and touched him on the shoulder. “We shall see if it’s a fight he wants.”

“Is that what
you
want?” Harry asked, glancing at his father’s mottled fingers.

The king pulled his hand away. “When the time is right, I shall welcome it.”

“Sooner would be better.” Harry’s eyes flicked skyward. “No storms today. Unless our Welsh wizard is brewing up a pot of snakes’ bellies and newts’ eyes as we speak. Today, at least, would seem to be in our favor.”

Harry cast a long accusing look at his father. The boy liked to challenge him. Had he been so impetuous in his youth?

On the whole of his left side, Henry suddenly felt a numbness spreading rapidly. He grabbed his left shoulder and pressed with his bare fingers against the unyielding armor. The fingers of his dangling hand prickled with heat. He gasped and quickly glanced down, but there was no fire consuming his skin, only a white burning from within that flared at his fingertips and shot up his arm, to his shoulder and into his heart. He battled for a breath, eyes clenched, until the flood of pain ebbed away. In a voice so strained and dampened only his son could hear, Henry said, “When you are king... you may decide... when to call the charge. Until... such time...”

His voice trailed away, leaving the thought unfinished.

Harry had not budged when he saw the discomfort flare in his father’s face. Always, there stood the unspoken battle between father and son. A friction that rubbed away at already fine threads. Henry knew his son had never forgiven him for Richard’s deposition. Even worse had been the questionable manner of his death. During those final months, Harry had begged his father for an audience with Richard, but any and all encounter was severely denied. In the confines of the Tower, Richard had wasted, his thin skin clinging to his bones, death’s pallor upon him, his mind feebly slipping away. How could he have ever explained to his son that it was Richard’s choice to forego sustenance that had killed him, not that he, Henry, had ordered food withheld? Harry would never have believed him anyway.

Beyond earshot of his father, Harry pulled Gilbert away. “Bring my horse at once. I will ride out with Greyndour to meet the man who so vexes my father.”

It would be fitting justice to witness the Welsh calling upon their old gods to conjure up a tempest to send Henry of Bolingbroke back to London. He wouldn’t miss it for anything. Not even for a cellar full of wine and free rein in a brothel.

When Harry caught up with Greyndour, he was handing over the king’s answers to the one they called Gethin the Fierce.

“Fetch your master,” Harry said to Gethin. “I’ll have a word with him.”

Instead of a flat denial, Gethin gave a fleeting grin and sped back to the lines of the Welsh camp with the bowl of ashes in the crook of his arm.

As Owain Glyndwr rode his silver-maned courser across the open field, Harry was charged with excitement. He knew his father was watching this all unfold from afar—undoubtedly fuming.

Oh, but let him watch. Let him see how it is done.

Owain halted a hundred feet from Harry’s party and dismounted alone. He stayed his men with his palm and looked toward Harry. Withdrawing his sword and handing it to Gethin, he pulled his helmet off and sat it on the ground at his feet. Then he waited.

Taking his cue, Harry leapt from his saddle and also abandoned his weapons and headgear.

“My prince,” Greyndour said, a note of caution in his voice, “I do not think this wise.”

Harry laughed. “It’s not wise of him either.” And he went forward.

Owain Glyndwr was extremely tall and his hair fell in sun-gold waves about his shoulders. His hungry strides betrayed a purpose, yet the smooth glide of his steps displayed a grace uncommon for a man of such proportions. His gaze was cool and gentle and his bearing regal in a manner that Harry had not expected. They met halfway between Abberley and Woodbury Hills—two great armies at their backs and the sun strong above them.

“I applaud your bravery,” Harry said, smiling.

“I have been called a fool of late,” Owain said, “and this would prove me so.”

“But the curiosity was killing you.”

“Indeed it was. I beg your pardon, but I am not sure how to address you.”

“Henry, Prince of Wales.”

“And by what descent of lineage would you make that claim?”

Harry’s amusement melted. He curled the fingers of his right hand into a fist at his side. “Let us not quibble over ancestral titles,
Sir
Owain.”

Owain’s gaze never wavered. “Is that not how this all began?”

Harry chuckled and shook his head. “Really, now. How do you think this will end?” He glanced behind him at the hill, black with English soldiers. “I must admit, I don’t think my father ever expected this of you. He is a stubborn man, you see. One might think that by now he would cease to underestimate you. You have surprised us all. And with French soldiers at your bidding, no less. We are evenly matched, wouldn’t you say?”

It was oddly silent. The taunting chants from both sides were absent. A long while passed before Owain spoke.

“Evenly, yes. Either could win.”

“And either could lose.”

Owain tilted his head back. “What do you want?”

“I only wanted to know whether or not we agreed... and I think we do.”

Then Harry turned, his head bare and his back to his enemies, and went to his horse, leaving Greyndour to collect his things. He was sure the rebel now realized he was quite a different sort from his father, which had been his whole purpose in this meeting.

When he returned to camp his father berated him and then pressed him for information—of which Harry had none to give. Even as the king flared with indignation at his son, the soldiers glowed with admiration for Harry. They may have cowered at Henry’s command, but it was Harry they followed in heart.

Iolo Goch:

My lord Owain got exactly the answer he expected. And with a very clever twist on Henry’s part, he thought. But Harry, so arrogant in his bold youthfulness and yet so astute, had planted the nagging seed of doubt in Owain’s mind. Years of planning hinged on this event—and how easily it could all come undone. Just as it had for Hotspur.

The following day, Edmund penned the demands again precisely as they had read before: that Henry relinquish his false claim to the throne; that the young Earl of March be rightly crowned, that the north of England be given over to Northumberland and Wales to Owain; that due compensation be paid to Wales for the destruction inflicted by the army of England, that Wales be permitted to establish its own universities and church; and that England once and forever forfeit all claim to Welsh lands.

This time, my lord Owain struck one demand from the document. One single term. He would graciously allow Henry of Bolingbroke to live out his life in exile and avoid trial.

Again, the document came back. This time in illegible shreds. For four more days, Rhys Gethin rode down into the valley and met Sir John Greyndour.

Each time, Gethin returned with the same riposte from Abberley Hill. Furious, the French would send a small party of knights onto the field. The English replied likewise. From both hills, cheers rattled the sky. Lances were lowered as French and English targeted one another. But always, the skirmishes ended the same: some wounded, others run through at the point of a sword, their bleeding corpses dragged back to camp. Nearly two hundred men from both sides died. A terrible waste of good fighting men.

The French were not above picking fights with their own allies, leaving the Welsh a grumbling lot who despised the very men who had come to aid them.

46

Near Worcester, England — September, 1405